A CEO who sold a startup for $1 billion, led a big IPO for another, and raised $80 million for a 3rd shares some simple advice on building a tech unicorn

Wayne Jackson has a decent record when it comes to growing a business and exiting at a bumper valuation — he’s done it twice before and is well on the way to repeating the trick a third time.

Jackson, a 56-year-old tech veteran, built his reputation by cofounding the wireless-infrastructure company Riverbed Technologies. He served as the firm’s CEO for nearly three years before selling it to Aether Systems for more than $1 billion in March 2000.

From Riverbed, he joined the network-security company Sourcefire in 2002. He steered the company through an initial public offering in 2007 that raised more than $70 million. Jackson departed a year later, and Sourcefire went on to be acquired by Cisco for $2.7 billion in 2013.

Jackson is now the CEO of Sonatype, a company that helps firms vet the software components they use. He joined in 2010, and in September, the startup announced it had raised $80 million in a funding round led by TPG Capital. Although Sonatype did not disclose its valuation, it has raised $154.7 million since it was founded in 2008.

The recent raise will help Sonatype build out its Nexus platform. Nexus is a vast software repository that helps keep everything in the development and operations cycle secure and up-to-date. Sonatype describes it as “the world’s best way to organize, store, and distribute software components.” Clients include Equifax, Salesforce, EDF, and Delta Air Lines.

Although they’re the most glamorous of Silicon Valley startups, the companies Jackson has served have one thing in common: They super-serve a specific market. And it’s this that Jackson highlights when sharing his advice on growing a successful tech business.

“Find a niche you can serve,” Jackson said. “At Sonatype, for example, we arguably know more about open source projects than you could possibly know. The area Sonatype serves is interesting enough to find its market, but still specific enough that giants such as Google aren’t necessarily going to look at what we do and think: We should be doing that.”

This is a theory also beloved by some of the most successful venture-capital investors in tech. They call it “product-market fit.

Source: Business Insider