Some of our most interesting founders are immigrants. That is certainly the case with Federico Cismondi, a bioengineer from MIT. His path began at the foothills of the Andes and has led Federico and his co-founders to build a company, doDoc that is radically changing how the world’s technology leaders handle complex documents. This was a scintillating interview.
Highlights include:
doDoc is not your grandfather’s Google Docs, it’s more like Google Docs on super duper steroids.
doDoc allows users to do things no other platform offers, for example an owner can share a portion of a document, not the entire document.
On doDoc every piece of information is an object allowing great flexibility in privacy, accountability and presentation.
Pharmaceutical companies appreciate that every key stroke is instantly auditable. This saves a lot of time for auditors and significantly reduces the risk of mistakes.
doDoc’s founders are from Argentina and Portugal and yet was founded in Cambridge. It probably has the best soccer team of any Cambridge startup!
Los tres amigos, Carlos, Paulo & Federico knew they wanted to build a company but were searching for an idea. Their first idea was to help in scientific collaboration where massive documents are common.
Competition is MS Word, MS SharePoint, Viva. doDoc’s features make it valuable to integrate with existing offerings.
Techstars allowed doDoc to expand its connections to investors in Boston.
Portugal is becoming a dynamic place for startups.
A long journey to get product/market fit, now the company is focusing on scaling up
First pivot was from research to industry. Money sparing vs. time sparing.
Shortening the time to market for pharmaceutical companies is highly important economically.
Entry point includes the regulatory group, another is quality also R&D.
In early raises doDoc did not use mentors; now they do. Frankness and good communication are really essential.
doDoc manages investors with a formal and methodical sales process.
Federico was initially drawn into nuclear medicine by an inspiring teacher and eventually built a company in the space. An introduction to building software.
Federico’s advice is to hire fast. Get the new hires involved in hiring new people.
Read your family into the ups and downs of your company so they are prepared to support you.
The relationship with co-founders requires really good communication.