Anurag Gupta | Calyptia
ANURAG GUPTA
Co-Founder of Calyptia, a company that makes it easy for users to get the most value out of their observability and security data.
What Is Calyptia? Tell Us About The Company And Overall Mission.
Calyptia is the company behind two open-source projects: FluentBit and Fluentd. These projects make it easy for users to get the most value out of their observability and security data. At the same time, they help users enrich, redact, reduce and process all of their data streams.
What Is Your Background? What Led You To Starting Your Own Company, And How Did You End Up In This Space.
I have been in the engineering and observability space for the past 10 years. I started at Microsoft, where I gained exposure to open source and where I met my current business partner, Eduardo Silva.
After spending some time at Microsoft, I moved to Treasure Data and helped lead the enterprise piece of their open-source projects in 2017. After about eight months with Treasure Data, I felt my career needed a shift. The company was at a fork in the road –– whether to pursue customer data platforms or open source. Treasure Data was acquired shortly after, and I left for Elastik to work in cloud services and product management for the following two and a half years.
I saw an opportunity with Treasure Data that was never fully realized because of where the company was at the time. Eduardo and I remained in contact all those years and decided we could jump on the opportunity we saw at Treasure Data. We chose to pursue our own business, which is now Calyptia.
What Was The Inspiration Behind The Company Name?
I received two pieces of advice for naming a company: stay as close to the letter “A” as possible and if you can get a dotcom domain name, that’s a big bonus. Eduardo is from Chile and currently lives in Costa Rica. He has become fond of bird-related names, with a carrier pigeon logo for Fluentd and a hummingbird logo for Fluent Bit. The name Calyptia originated from the word calypte, which is the genus of the hummingbird. Calypte sounded like “Calyptia” when pronounced in Spanish, so the name stuck.
We also had a Greek customer who pointed out that calypta or calypte means to assist or help in Greek. We like having that connotation associated with the name as well.
What Have Been Both Your Favorite And Least-liked Parts Of Your Entrepreneurial Journey? What Have Been Your Most Challenging And Most Exciting Moments For You And The Company?
My favorite part of my entrepreneurial journey is the amount of impact and the immediate results we see from performance. As an entrepreneur, there’s no team I have to report back to or person I have to go to asking for permission. I’m able to execute as I see fit and watch how decisions unfold.
That autonomy also leads to my least favorite part — there’s a lot to do. In building Calyptia, there is never just one item on my to-do list. There are hundreds of parts of a company, and it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae.
That said, running a business is also a lot of fun. There’s a lot to learn, try out and figure out with such a diverse set of problems.
My most challenging and exciting moments are in determining how to grow effectively. As part of that, I want to ensure that the culture we want to embody as a company continues to tread well and that we’re working together as a company vs. just a product team, with shared collective goals. These are challenges I welcome as a first-time founder and are much greater than just wanting to build a product.
There are two parts of my job that excite me the most. First, I love seeing the joy from customers when we help to solve their problems and the positive comments we get on our product. It’s great to know that we’re doing something valuable and that people are excited.
That translates well to the second part that excites me most about my job, which is the people side of the equation. We’ve been able to create something that never existed before and everyone, from product development to marketing team members, can see how the work they do resonates with users and customers.
What Was The Fundraising Process Like For You? Tell Us About Your Investors And How You Use The Funds You’ve Raised.
We were lucky in the fundraising process. The time we began fundraising was in a founder- and funding-friendly time when folks were looking to invest in a seed round. When we brainstormed investors, we started by looking at trusted connections first and foremost.
We knew we already had a really large community of tens of thousands of users, and had almost already proven the efficacy of our business model from our previous work. There was an entire market being built around open source, so we took our one-year business plan and built it out for the next five to 10 years.
Who Are Your Co-Founders Or People Who You Work Very Closely With? How Do Their Skills Supplement Yours?
Eduardo is the other Co-Founder of Calyptia. He was responsible for creating FluentBit and is extremely technical in his abilities. I’m on the product management and sales side because I love interacting with people and making fast-moving decisions. Eduardo balances me out with his ability to focus on the long-term vision and technology aspect of the business. He is thoughtful about how to simultaneously take care of the product and segments of the business.
What Is One Thing About Building A Business You Did Not Know That You’ve Learned So Far Since Launching Calyptia?
The biggest thing I learned about building a business is not to underestimate how much people matter. A business is not a product or a number of sales or revenue. It’s the people who make up that business. I’ve loved learning how to host employees and ensure they feel taken care of. I hadn’t had much experience in that capacity before.
How Has Growth Been Over The Last Year? Any New Products Or Features Launching Soon?
Growth at Calyptia has been great over the last year. We’re focused on open source and our commercial product, and we have seen both grow extraordinarily well. We’ve seen deployments grow from 1B to 3B on the open source side. With our product offering, we’ve been able to triple our revenue over the last year. We launched Calyptia Core earlier this year and are adding four to five new features a week. We welcome anyone interested in learning more to reach out to us.
Tell Us About Your Typical Workday Schedule. What Are Your Morning And Evening Routines? What Are Some Tips You Have For Staying Productive?
My work day fluctuates throughout the week, but I like to keep my schedule open for new customers. At least 50% of my meetings for the week are with customers –– talking to them about use cases, selling to them and understanding their problems.
Another 25% of my time is spent with the team to ensure everyone is aligned with how we tackle our goals. The last 25% of my time is dedicated to thinking and can be as simple as going on a walk.
Tools-wise, I implement as many as I can into my daily routine. I’m a self-diagnosed tools addict. If I see something on Product Hunt that’s cool, I’ll check it out. And if it adds value, I try to add it to what I already use: some of which are Motion, Superhuman and Google Docs.
What Are The Top Qualities or Skills You Believe Entrepreneurs Need In Order To Be Successful? Also, What Advice Do You Have For Entrepreneurs Who Are Just Starting Out?
There’s a lot of gatekeeping in the entrepreneurial world, but prospective entrepreneurs just need to start. As long as someone starts and continues with the most basic skill –– even part-time –– over a long period of time, their chances of success increase. A person’s determination for entrepreneurial success can be different too. That success may be an additional $10 each month to supplement the occasional fast-food meal. But courage, persistence and the willingness to start are essential for entrepreneurs.
Tell Us A Story Of Something That Happened To You That Taught You An Important Lesson.
As mentioned, I’m a first-time founder, but I tried to start a company twice before Calyptia. The first time, I tried to start a project with a bunch of random folks. The team was really tenured and cohesive from past careers and we had a beta product out there, but when I started to get into fundraising, I realized I wasn’t fully into it.
After that experience, I decided to do a small project with a trusted ex-coworker who was also a really good friend. I worked on this education startup project for a few months. I ultimately left that startup though because I missed working in infrastructure. It’s okay if things don’t feel right and good to listen to that: sometimes your gut is really important.
Initially, I was an advisor to Calyptia in its early stages, before recognizing my passion for the project and deciding to join full-time. There are so many opportunities out there. Entrepreneurs should know that the journey may not start out perfectly and while that may be discouraging, it’s important to continue pushing forward.
What Are Some Things You Incorporate Into Your Schedule To Maintain Health And Wellness?
I like to go to the gym a couple of times a week, where I do yoga or class-based fitness. It’s also important to me to monitor my health and take time off if not feeling 100%. I always encourage every employee to do the same.
What Do You Do In Your Free Time?
I like to travel a lot if I can. I will go anywhere to hike or spend time seeing the sights. Otherwise, I’m always super-eager and happy to play video games, read books and spend time with family. Any free time, I’ll take it.
My favorite place I recently visited was Colombia. I also traveled to Cuba about five years ago and thought it was really cool to see Havana and the old cars.
Who Is Your Role Model?
My mom is my role model. She works really hard and has a great way of attacking problems.
If You Can Have A One-hour Meeting With Someone Famous Who Is Alive, Who Would It Be And Why?
I would have a one-hour meeting with Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase. He has a different way of thinking about the world that is so far removed from everyday thinking. I’d like to hear his perspective on life and business.
Any Other Thoughts You Want To Share Relating To Current Events, The Economy, Political Climate, Or Any Other Topic?
With the current state of the economy, the pandemic, and the war between Russia and Ukraine, it’s impactful to see how global the world has become. Things so far away can have such a global impact. Pricing, inflation and gas are all connected globally.
With software and open source, we find ourselves in a position where the global community is even closer. There were big fires in Greece a few years ago, and the open-source community connected with those impacted by the fire. Communities like these make connections much smaller and less far apart.
Calyptia’s goal is to create a global company with open source first. Wherever our customers are, we want to meet them and help them be the best they can be. That mindset has helped us scale, and we’ve seen success and more opportunities in a post-COVID, remote world. As we remain closer together, we soldier on.
What Does Success Mean To You?
To me, success is control over my own time — doing the things I love to do and meeting with the people I’d like to meet. Want to go on a trip? Let’s go! I like the ability to travel and experience new parts of life. Success is not anything too monetary to me.
Anurag Gupta’s Favorites Stack:
Books:
1. Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism, by Olivia Fox Gabane
2. The Mom Test, by Rob Fitzpatrick
3. Atomic Habits, by James Clear
Health & Fitness:
1. Orangetheory Fitness
2. CorePower for yoga
3. Peloton in between classes
Brands:
1. Costco t-shirts (they’re the most comfortable)
2. Rhone for athletic gear
3. Allbirds for shoes
Products:
1. MacBook
2. iPhone (I’m too addicted)
3. Noise-canceling Sony headphones because I travel a decent amount
Newsletters & Podcasts:
1. How I Built This with Guy Raz
2. The Daily by NYT
3. Observability newsletter from Michael Hausenblas
Upcoming Travel Spots:
1. Rwanda
2. Sri Lanka, when it opens back up
3. Seychelles
