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Shadrach White Visit



Shadrach White is the CEO of CloudPWR, who we had the opportunity to hear from as our final guest speaker. Shadrach started his vision around the year of 2010-2011 when he saw cloud computing as the next generation emerging technology that will be used widely. Too much of his back then business partners’ disagreement, who did not see cloud computing the same way as he does, Shadrach  left his old company and started what is now CloudPWR. Not only did he prioritize something that not a lot of people see then, Shadrach also has a different targeted market than majority of tech companies—government sector. He believes that this market is approachable, despite the fact that the government sector did not buy into cloud computing due to security risks at the time, and that if he were able to make connections, then it’ll be easier in the future to continue expanding his business in this market. And it sure did, Shadrach’s company to this date is working with at least 100 clients around Washington State, which is an incredible number for the market that he is.  One thing that stood out between Shadrach and previous speakers that we had is his method of “bootstrapping”. He did not hire his first employee until he had months of their pay prepared to ensure that he would not be running on negative net gain between incoming revenues and employee pay. Entrepreneurship is heavily about raising funding to get the business running; however it is nice to see someone who explains the running of the money ‘safely’. I think Shadrach is someone who believes in safely running a business in terms of finances. One of his quotes is that: “The more you’re willing to ask for money without a proper evaluation, the more you’ll give up.” I think the sentence holds true to his philosophy as he was not willing to expand his company, looking for more investments, until he had proved the success and reputation of himself and his company. Shadrach’s visit was very motivating and I think it helps me a lot when thinking ways to start a business such that it’d run without suffering financial problems as well as when it is good enough to start looking for funding.

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