Startup of the Day - Virsto Software

The BizSpark startup of the day is Virsto Software, based in the US. You will find below an interview with Mindy Anderson, Director of Product Management at Virsto Software. All the best to them and congrats for being the startup of the day!

Website: www.virsto.com.

Interview with Mindy Anderson, Director of Product Management at Virsto Software

Tell us who you are and your role in the company:

Director of Product Management.

What did you do before creating your company?

The founders of Virsto (CEO, CTO and VP of Engineering) were all working in various other emerging technology companies. I joined Virsto as the company was launching the beta program for our Virsto One software product.

How do you feel being the most promising ‘Startup of the Day’ per Microsoft BizSpark?

This is very exciting!

What is your company’s mission?

Virsto sees a world where virtual storage is as empowering as virtual servers.

In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:

First and only hypervisor-based storage virtualization software architected to anticipate the evolving demands, barriers and opportunities of the virtual computing era.

How did you get the idea for your company?

We recognized that there were some fundamental differences in how storage was deployed and managed moving from a physical to virtual world. We talked with customers to validate their pain points and our presumptions.

Tell us about your funding history. Are you currently looking for funding? If so, how much?

We received our initial funding in Summer 2008. We are not actively seeking funding at this time.

How many employees do you have? How many developers?

We are an 18-person company, 14 developers.

Are you hiring? If yes, what are you hiring and where?

We are not actively hiring. But are always on the look out for people who have a mix of storage and virtualization experience that can help us reach our goals.

Which platform are you building on? Why?

We build on multiple platforms, including Windows. We set out from the beginning to be hypervisor agnostic. The first release of our first product, Virsto One, is only supported in a Windows Hyper-V environment. We have enjoyed the support and the enthusiasm in working with the Microsoft team.

What do you think about the BizSpark Program?

We are excited about the possibilities and potential of the program.

Do you have any advice for young Software entrepreneurs?

One of the biggest things to get right is understanding the problem you are trying to solve. This is hard. It requires analysis of the problem or question being asked. It must be attacked from multiple levels. This gets tricky because of one thing – the ability to listen.

Who’s your role model?

I have many. Every day I go into the office, I am in awe of the team of people that I work with and the accomplishments that they all have done in their lives outside of the office. I think my role models are typically the people who just chose to do something and did not give up. There are people like Pablo Picasso who used many forms of media to showcase his art, it seems to me he was finding different ways to use art to reach his audience. I like the people who continue to push the envelope in their respective areas. I love their creativity.

What’s the ONE THING you would like readers to take away from this interview?

How could I possibly choose one thing? Virsto sees a world where virtual storage is as empowering as virtual servers. It really is our vision.