“We make all-flash and hybrid storage arrays that help organizations eliminate storage silos, simplify storage management, and reduce costs”: Tegile Systems

“Our enterprise storage arrays accommodate different grades of storage media—from hard disks to high-performance flash memory.”

Founded in 2010, Tegile Systems is a privately held enterprise storage vendor headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. The enterprise storage arrays accommodate different grades of storage media from hard disks to high-performance flash memory. Using patented IntelliFlash software architecture, data is organized and placed on the most appropriate media to deliver optimal performance with the best possible economics. Native support for both SAN and NAS protocols enables you to simplify data management by storing application data, virtual machines, and unstructured data all on a single array.

Since 2010, businesses of all sizes have relied on its enterprise storage solutions to accelerate their applications, reduce their storage footprint, and cut operational costs. With demand growing for bigger data and faster service, your storage infrastructure can make or break your business. Accelerate your business with flash storage from Tegile.

In head-To-head with the dignitary: Rohit Kshetrapal, Co-founder and CEO

Why was the company set up? How did you select the vertical and decide to be a part of the global platform?

Our enterprise storage arrays accommodate different grades of storage media from hard disks to high-performance flash memory. Using patented IntelliFlash software architecture, data is organized and placed on the most appropriate media to deliver optimal performance with the best possible economics. Native support for both SAN and NAS protocols enables you to simplify data management by storing application data, virtual machines, and unstructured data all on a single array.

Tell us about your first product that was launched?

Tegile’s first products were hybrid storage systems that combine the performance of flash and the economics of hard disk drives.

What kind of mixed responses have you received from your consumers over the years? How have they motivated you to shape your offerings/grow the company?

After Three years in the market with hybrid storage systems on our line card, we received strong requests for all-flash arrays. We began shipping all-flash arrays and now they represent 60% of our revenue.

What challenges did you face in your initial years?

Our biggest challenge during our early years was committing enough money to marketing. We were getting outspent 10:1 by our competitors. This cost our sales teams in low awareness and at bats in opportunities. As we have grown, we have become more aggressive with marketing budgets and are seeing a direct impact on sales productivity.

If you have to list five factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?

• Solid product architecture – has allowed us to sustain competitive advantage.
• Honest sales culture – many of our competitors over commit and under deliver. Tegile’s sales culture drives us to accurately set expectations with customers.
• Culture of customer “gratification” – customer satisfaction is not enough at Tegile. Our customers consistently acknowledge that our field engineers and customer support teams go the extra mile at every opportunity.
• Realistic expectation setting – Tegile is built on an achievable business model that does not over-extend our resources and put us on an unsustainable spending curve.
• Agility – The name Tegile comes from combining the words “technology” and “agile” Agility is a huge part of our culture. We are in a fast moving market and must be able to adjust quickly.

How big is your organization today? Briefly explain the organizational structure?

Tegile has approximately 325 employees. A significant number of these are in customer facing roles in sales, support etc. out in the field in North America and Western Europe. The remaining employees are in our California headquarters or our Bangalore India development center.

What learnings helped you to set this company up?

This is not the first startup for our founders. Having built companies from scratch with successful exits has given the team an immense amount of experience and lessons learned in how to launch and grow a company.

How do you and your company contribute to the global IT platform and society at large?

From helping more hospital patients get treatment to enabling the Department of Defense strengthen their IT security, Tegile’s technology is making huge contributions to the global IT platform and society at large.

Here goes the chronicle of this remarkable personality: Rohit Kshetrapal

He is a Co-Founder and CEO of Tegile Systems, where he provides strategic direction, product planning, and market and industry leadership. His goal is to transform enterprise IT by improving substantially the performance and economics of enterprise storage. He is leading the development of innovative flash-optimized storage solutions that provide much better cost/performance tradeoffs for businesses of many different sizes and with varied applications.

Rohit has focused on developing products for emerging Web and network-based enterprises for many years. Before co-founding Tegile, he co-founded and was President of Perfigo, a network admission control company acquired by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO). Its product remains a key element of Cisco’s product line and reached an annual run rate of $300M. He also held key executive positions at Brience, a leading mobile software developer, and Webvibe, a developer of application middleware. His approaches have been to start with small, seasoned entrepreneurial teams and create innovative products that offer unmatched value to customers. He earned an MS and BS in computer science from the University of Denver.

“Businesses of all sizes have relied on our enterprise storage solutions to accelerate their applications, reduce their storage footprint, and cut operational costs.”