Cira Apps CEO Vern Weitzman is nothing if not durable. He just seems to have been present at every significant tech moment, offering insights and running successful companies.There he is, as the first wisps of the modern cloud begin to cohere. And in a non-existent photograph titled “The Early Pioneers of SaaS” -- yeah, there’s Weitzman.
Read Vern Weitzman on the power of the pivot.
“... the market was changing, technology was maturing, and it was clear we had to pivot. Existing customers began migrating from on-premise messaging to cloud-based Microsoft Office 365. I wish I could say that we moved faster, but I was initially skeptical about how many medium and large enterprises would migrate to the cloud. After exploring options and cloud technology, we decided to build cloud-specific applications for Office 365.
We launched CiraSync in April of 2016. Today, the SaaS platform has more than 120,000 users at over 1,000 enterprise companies. We’re growing, we have amazing customers, and less than 5% churn. I can honestly say that we seem to have hit our stride in 2020.
… Shifting to a cloud offering made all the difference. Initially, I worried that it would be less secure and more costly than how we were doing it, but that was proven to be totally wrong. So, when we figured out what we needed to do, we went all in.”
The modern tech scene puts a premium on newness - we talk about innovation, startups, disruption and so on. But isn’t longevity the real marker of success? A dynamic and seasoned figure like Weitzman, who always seems to know which way the wind blows, reminds us that every good startup ends up somewhere.