My Zoom demo from Eric Yuan
It seems like an eternity ago again when I had my first Zoom meeting with the founder of Zoom in early 2015. Back then, Zoom was still a modest company in the USA with big plans. My first Zoom demo by the maestro himself has always stayed with me. The passion and conviction of the maestro was overwhelming. And I must confess, even then, in the early days of Zoom, I was surprised by the possibilities and especially the image quality of Zoom. Sitting in front of a Chinese screen, intended as a quiet backdrop, Eric flew through the features of Zoom that were already available at the time. I was immediately flabbergasted. This was to be the new standard of live online video communication.
After a few conversations with Eric, as well as with his then Head of Sales Greg Holmes, the first agreements were made to also start working in Europe. Under the name 4Webcom, we started working with Zoom from those early days in 2015. By now Eric Yuan is a very well known person in the world of technology and video communication. I thought it would be fun to tell a little more about Zoom owner Eric Yuan in this blog. Who is this man who is already mentioned in the same breath as other Silicon Valley software heroes like Marc Zuckenberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Jef Bezos?
The tenacious one wins
As a young guy born in China, Eric was inspired during a tour of Japan by a lecture given by Bill Gates, then still at the head of Microsoft. It soon became clear that Eric needed to be in Silicon Valley to turn his love of technology, software and programming into a job. The practice, however, proved recalcitrant. His request for a USA visa was turned down eight times. Under the motto: "it's the perseverance that wins" his ninth attempt was granted.
At last he could begin his American Dream. In 1997 he started his career at Webex, by then already owned by the mighty Cisco. There he quickly rose to the position of manager within Webex (VIP Engineer) as far as the software engineers were concerned. Webex experienced tremendous growth in the years that Eric was in charge. He was happy with his job but resented the dissatisfaction of customers who, although they had embraced Webex, often came with various complaints. The old "engine" of Webex needed to be renewed, Eric said. And not just that. According to Eric, a new application had to be built from scratch to meet the increasing quality requirements. Understandable, because you can't turn a granny bike into a racing bike. Despite his innovative vision and presentation to the Cisco Board on happy customers and software development, he received no response. That was the signal for him to chase his own dream. The founding of his own ICT company was not long in coming.
The start of Zoom
Freed from the "Cisco yoke", he set to work on Zoom. Incidentally, it took seven months before the name Zoom was chosen for his ICT company. A name that is now a worldwide brand. Of course, it didn't all go smoothly. But Zoom was born and nothing stopped Eric. After several pitches and regular "no thanks, we already have enough video communication companies" Eric managed, in addition to his own investment, to get his first seed capital.
The real breakthrough and brand awareness in the USA regarding the first Zoom version came via Walt Mossberg, a journalist from The Wallstreet Journal, who at the time was a leader in reviews of technical (software) products. To this day, Eric Yuan does not hide his appreciation for Walt's review. In a blog he puts it beautifully like this: https://blog.zoom.us/walt-mossberg-appreciation/ The impact of the article in The Wallstreet Journal was enormous. No less than 50,000 new Zoom registrations within one day. Zoom had suddenly become a household name in the world of live online video communication software.
And also the mantra of happinez praised by Eric to this day. Happy customers and happy employees. That was and still is his leitmotiv. Together with Cisco and Microsoft, Zoom has been considered by the leading Gartner Research company for years as one of the leaders in the world of video communication software and recently also in the world of UCAAS (Unified Communication As A Service).
From pandemic to Nasdaq
Like many software vendors within this field, the sudden pandemic of the Covid virus did not do Zoom any favors. With the speed at which Covid took hold of the world, most companies, including Zoom, were not ready for the huge influx of new customers. Although Eric always considered scaling up his own Zoom Cloud, the demand for Zoom was overwhelming. From schools that wanted to deploy the software as quickly as possible to dance schools, consultants, companies that needed to hold meetings online and even organizations that hosted online happy hours through Zoom. Everyone had found Zoom.
The first consequence was not long in coming. Eric's mantra of "happy customers" took a first knock when it turned out that incompetent and above all hasty Zoom users did not take the security settings into account. Whereas Zoom was intended for organizations, these private users caused a storm of criticism and often unjustified references to the software showing "leaks". Eric wouldn't be Eric if he made a virtue of necessity. Modestly and somewhat touched, he apologized for these security issues and promised to do better. And so it happened. In no time, he took measures, invested in knowledge and skills in the field of security, took specialists on board and spoke to customers during his recurring security webinars: "ask Eric anything.
After these storms had passed, a stock exchange listing was not long in coming. The overall success of Zoom, headed by Eric Yuan, was ready for an IPO. During the first day on the Nasdaq New York stock exchange, the share shot up like a rocket: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/18/zoom-ipo-stock-begins-trading-on-nasdaq.html. Once again it proved how many people still appreciate Zoom's vision and approach. From the small unknown Zoom there is now a multinational with thousands of employees all over the world and staggering numbers of users and more as beautifully displayed in this convenient blog: https://backlinko.com/zoom-users
The American Dream
From that first demo in 2015 to the present day, Eric Yuan is still that driven, humble and above all knowledgeable entrepreneur who has created something amazing. From all the attempts to get a visa at all to the willpower and ability to chase his own American Dream, Eric is in my eyes the example for all entrepreneurs who want to turn their dreams into fun and success. In addition to happy customers and happy employees, I can honestly say that there are also happy Zoom partners. We as 4Webcom are, at least for the full 100%.
Quote Eric:
Our philosophy at Zoom is to create a company that promotes self-motivation. I have told our managers not to spend too much time motivating employees. You have to create an environment where employees can motivate themselves. That is really important because self-motivation is more sustainable.
