Diane Greene at Startup School 2013

TL;DR

Diane Greene recounts founding VMware in 1998 with a big vision of universal virtualization, starting with a desktop product that let Linux users run Windows without changes to any OS or hardware. The company self-funded initially, then raised angel money from technically sophisticated computer scientists (Bechtolsheim, Hennessy, Cheriton) and later a strategic round led by Dell at a deliberately

Key insights

• Self-funding should come only from immediate family, not friends; choose angels who are technically sophisticated enough to understand the product on a single phone call.
• When facing monopolies (Microsoft, Intel), keep your valuation low to avoid a down round later; Dell invested despite publicly saying Linux companies never profit because he wanted to help Linux.
• The first product milestone must be doable and create value for someone (e.g., a developer tool) even if it is not the full vision; for VMware that was running Windows on Linux or Linux on Windows wit