Brian Platz | Fluree
BRIAN PLATZ
Co-CEO of Fluree, an open source semantic graph database that guarantees data integrity, facilitates secure data sharing, and powers connected data insights.
What Is Fluree? Tell Us About What You Do And What The Company’s Mission Is.
Fluree is an open-source semantic graph database that guarantees data integrity, facilitates secure data sharing, and powers connected data insights. Fluree extends the role of the traditional enterprise database to include new functionality such as security, integrity, and native interoperability with other systems.
Fluree organizes blockchain-secured data into a highly-scalable graph database.
Fluree’s unique features serve as a platform for emerging architectures and services that rely heavily on high-quality, trusted, and shared data. Customers include the U.S. Airforce, Wake Forest Baptist Health, and a host of enterprises and startups.
What Is Your Background? What Led You To Starting Your Own Company? And How Did You Choose This Space?
Flip Filipowski and I have been building enterprise technology companies together for decades. Following over 40 years of collective experience, building successful IT companies, we applied our frustrations and knowledge in the space to forge a new path forward in data management.
Having come from enterprise technology, we had first hand experience with the shortcomings of the traditional legacy three-tier architecture stack - with security vulnerabilities spread out across middleware, bloated webs of APIs to accomplish data sharing, and a complete lack of
provable integrity to the very data that drives businesses today.
Flip and I founded Fluree and brought to market Fluree’s data management platform, a modular “data stack” that brings unprecedented flexibility, scale, and security to data management; a marked departure from the legacy “black box” database server.
We chose the data management space because future innovation across every sector will require a data layer with more capabilities. As enterprises increasingly focus on capturing the expanding value of data, Fluree is uniquely positioned to enable new frameworks for trusted data management, including: democratizing data across collaborative industry networks for greater efficiencies, addressing the worldwide data ownership and privacy crisis, and being a trusted underlying data source for emerging technologies such as AI and ML.
Who Are Your Co-Founders Or People Who You Work Very Closely With? How Do Their Skills Supplement Yours?
Flip is my co-founder and co-CEO. Flip and I have been best friends and business partners for years. Having built successful SaaS companies together in the past, we observed the same issues and opportunities in enterprise technology, ultimately leading us to have a mutual vision for the future of data management that we were equally excited about. We've always believed in the power of sharing the helm for balanced decision-making. As Co-CEOs we can approach problems together, bringing our specific expertise and perspectives. As the technical co-founder, I lead many of the product initiatives at Fluree - and Flip brings 40+ years of visionary enterprise technology experience to help inform our overall direction. Having that level of self-imposed checks and balances brings a well-rounded leadership style to Fluree and gives way for more efficient decision making.
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 our journey at Fluree has been meeting people in the data management space and learning about how they are applying data to solve critical societal and business needs. We’ve evolved our “Fluree Partner Network” into a thriving ecosystem of independent software vendors, Systems Integrators, and consultants that are applying Fluree’s technology to their respective industries and geographies.
One challenge you can always expect at a company like Fluree would be early skeptics. Fluree is a totally different way of thinking about your data infrastructure and tech stack that many folks could not understand the path-to-market penetration. Thankfully, we have grown a steady following and community that is passionate about Fluree’s approach.
What Was The Fundraising Process Like For You? Tell Us About Your Investors And What You Use The Money You’ve Raised For.
Thankfully, Flip and I were able to self-fund the business through its idea stage. Fluree just completed a seed fund raise of $6.5 million led by 4490 Ventures with involvement from, Rise of the Rest, Good Growth Capital, Engage Ventures, and former Venrock Managing Partner Ray Rothrock. Our VCs are true partners in our mission to penetrate the enterprise data management market.
What Are Some Of The Frequent Use-Cases Or Challenges Which Fluree Helps Solve?
Here are a few key use cases Fluree customers are building out at the moment:
Verifiable Credentials - Building trusted digital versions of important documents like transcripts or driver’s licenses. I wrote about how Verifiable Credentials will redefine our trust in digital documents here.
Master Data Management Platforms - From 360-degree customer journey platforms to product information catalogs, Fluree's features allow for a single, dynamic, and trusted view of enterprise data.
Data Changelog, Audit, and Compliance - Fluree provides complete lineage and traceability to every data change, including verifiable proof into the origin and identities associated with information.
Metadata Catalogues - Build a platform for trusted sets of shared data and metadata for AI training or referential research.
Data Virtualization and Integration - Fluree's semantic graph data platform allows enterprises to integrate disparate data sources with virtually no overhead and deliver data to its stakeholders with context and speed.
Secure Third-Party Data Sharing Platforms - Fluree provides the benefits of blockchain technology to streamline trust in shared data and allow for dynamic collaboration.
What Are Your Thoughts On How Blockchain Will Change Industries Over The Next 5-10 Years?
Blockchain will undergo two transformations that will seem contradictory: the word will be used less and less, but the actual technology will be used more and more in an operational setting. Much like cloud computing, Blockchain as a philosophy that will fade into the buzzword background and instead will be used as a tool in a toolset to accomplish certain goals. I’m excited for that future.
Tell Us About Your Typical Workday Schedule.
I typically wake up just before 5am and check Slack/email/LinkedIn for anything critical. My day consists of a little bit of everything - including jumping into core product development, high-level sales calls, or client planning meetings.
What Was The Inspiration Behind The Company Name?
In the Fluree system, each atomic unit of data is completely unique - this means that there will be no two units of data that will be the same - like a snowflake. So, we call these units “flakes” and aptly named the company “Fluree” to represent a collection of “flakes.”
What Are The Most Important Skills A Modern Day Entrepreneur Needs In Order To Be Successful? What Advice Do You Have For Entrepreneurs Who Are Just Starting Out?
Skills: Consistency, Perseverance, and Integrity.
Here are three pieces of advice:
Avoid “shiny object” syndrome. Focus on getting your product to your primary audience and avoid the distractions.
Build a “future” deck showcasing your hypothetical progress over the course of the next year. This will give you a tangible idea of what success should look like to you and make the road to achieving your goals a little less daunting.
Hire diverse talent.
Tell Us A Something You Heard Or Saw Recently That Made You Laugh.
I read somewhere that the word describing a phobia of words is ironically “hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.”
What Do You Do In Your Spare Time?
I enjoy travelling with my family (and since the pandemic, simply spending time with them.)
If You Can Have A One-Hour Meeting With Someone Famous Who Is Alive, Who Would It Be And Why?
Tim Berners Lee, the original creator of the world wide web. I think we would have a lot to discuss, and ultimately, agree on.
What Does Success Mean To You?
To me, success means that my work at Fluree is helping fill critical needs in society - from cutting edge research, to enterprise decision-making, to better customer experiences.
