uptime software Inc. is a privately held corporation founded in 2001 and headquartered in Toronto, Canada. With over 850 clients in 32 countries, it is also one of the fastest growing companies in Canada.
Today we have Phil Didaskalou, CEO and Co-Founder of uptime software.
uptime software itself has 45 employees, and makes $7.5M in revenues. With a truly global reach to nearly all the continents of the world, Phil is definitely a model to follow.
Phil Didaskalou has been in the high tech industry for over 20 years. His experiences span across roles as an executive in marketing and sales for a diverse list of leading companies including Sun Microsystems, NCR Canada, AT&T Canada, and IBM Canada. Phil’s high level of technical expertise combined with his experience, depth, and balance of knowledge in IT systems management has been a critical factor in exceeding both aggressive revenue and growth targets for uptime software year over year.
If you are a true entrepreneur, you just can’t be happy working for others, you feel an absolute need to create your ‘own’ thing, whatever that is.
What was the spark that led you to starting your business?
A strong need to challenge myself and the need to feel greater achievement and success in life.
Where did your business’s seed capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
From our own pockets. We are one of the few companies that are truly organic and have shown a profit every year. We bootstrapped it from the start and have never taken in any outside funding.
Tell us a bit more about uptime software.
uptime is a premier provider of systems management software for virtual server monitoring and physical server monitoring, capacity planning, and service and application monitoring. Our up.time product is a deep, easy, affordable and complete IT Systems management software package.
Our rapidly growing customer base is truly international, with clients located in Canada, U.S.A., Europe, Latin America, Caribbean, Asia-Pacific region and Africa. They include well-known national and international companies from a wide variety of industries, including: telecommunications; financial services; utilities; manufacturers, government agencies; media; education and service providers.
To check out a sample of uptime’s client list, go take a look at their clients page.
What makes your software package unique and better than other providers out there?
Our up.time software package delivers deep, easy, affordable and complete server monitoring for mid-enterprises, without the complexity or high cost of enterprise tools by simplifying the management of virtual, physical and cloud resources and applications with a single tool.
How did you build up your Management Team?
We look for strong and talented people that understand the nature of our business. We focus as much on the personal qualities as we do on the skill set they bring to the table.
What insights do you have from building and attracting your workforce?
Culture is very important. We try to create a culture here that is performance and results based, and allows people get thing things done without too much red tape. We believe that people who are respected, encouraged to grow, and challenged to create new and better ideas usually exceed expectations.
How did you brand uptime and market its services?
uptime is what we promise via our product suite, and so we named our company exactly that. We also play on this with our tagline: uptime software…because downtime is not an option.
We also market up.time as a deep, easy, affordable and complete IT systems management suite, which differentiates us from our competitors.
We are one of the few companies that are truly organic and have shown a profit every year. We bootstrapped it from the start and have never taken in any outside funding.
Could you give us a brief description of your biggest success so far?
We have grown at an average rate of 60% year over year and were able to maintain our sales levels through the downturn.
What other milestones has uptime celebrated recently?
We were named to the “Fast 50” and the “Profit 100” in 2010.
Do you have plans to expand to new Markets?
We continue to focus on up.time as our main product set and are planning for new, and innovative releases in the following year, including deeper VMware monitoring and Cloud Monitoring.
Now, on a more personal note, what are your goals as an entrepreneur?
To continue to grow through this company, both as a person and as a CEO.
Do you have any other ventures you are working on?
I focus all of my efforts towards uptime software.
How do you define Success?
Literally, working for yourself. If you are a true entrepreneur, you just can’t be happy working for others, you feel an absolute need to create your ‘own’ thing, whatever that is.
To what do you most attribute your successes?
The first thing is Perseverance. You always have your ups and downs, but as an entrepreneur you must stay positive during the downs and continue to push forward.
The second is Trusting Your Gut. There is no substitute for doing your homework and spending hours combing through data. However, after looking at all the important perspectives of a decision, your gut instinct is critical. I’ve learned it’s an essential part of making good decisions
If you were to recommend a book or movie to a young entrepreneur, what would it be?
4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris.
How has being an entrepreneur affected your life?
I have improved myself in many beneficial ways. I have learned greater patience, how to think longer term and the importance of always having new goals in life. Being an entrepreneur has also very positively affected my financial portfolio and has allowed me to enjoy and try many new things in life including travel and other hobbies.
What is the best part about owning your own business?
The feelings of pride and gratitude when our company grew.
If you had the chance to start over again, what would you do differently?
I would have either put more money in during start-up or I would have raised some capital in the early days to grow the business faster.
Bootstrapping It Up.
Phil has created a very successful business without any outside support. That is a huge achievement. And to top it all off, he is now one of the fastest growing companies in Canada. And in Phil’s own words, what did it take? Perseverance and trusting his own gut. That’s the kind of mentality it takes to succeed in your own business, and Phil is a solid example of it.
You always have your ups and downs, but as an entrepreneur you must stay positive during the downs and continue to push forward.
Now, I would like to thank Phil Didaskalou, Co-Founder and CEO of uptime software for giving us some of his valuable time to share his insights. Thank you!
And to all of you out there looking to expand on your business server infrastructure, now you know where to go if you are looking for something that will help you manage and monitor your servers. For more information, click this link to reach uptime software.
