After a two-hour drive in the wonderful traffic of the Greater Boston Area, I arrived at Nasuni to conduct my interview with the company’s CFO/COO and seasoned startup operator, Scott Dussault. Nasuni’s offices are located between an orthopedic rehab office and a daycare, the perfect location for any budding software company. As Scott joked in an email with me, you could not make this stuff up; such is life at a promising startup I’d soon learn.

Scott Dussault, an avid New England Patriots fan and a graduate of Stonehill College, is a great resource for my first blog post. Beginning at Ernst and Young, he would later go on to StorageNetworks, which had an IPO in 2000, and was the pioneer in “cloud storage” before that was a term we’d all come to know.  From there Scott went to Archivas, Inc., which would get acquired by Hitachi. Eventually Scott ended up at Demandware, which he would help take public in another successful IPO in 2012. After that adventure, Scott joined Nasuni as CFO/COO.

The CFO/COO position is not rare, but not typical. Scott explained that normally the CEO is also the COO, especially at startups like Nasuni. But in Nasuni’s case the founder and CEO, Andres Rodriguez, is very involved in evangelizing his vision, which includes talking to customers and partners, gathering market data firsthand, and speaking at conferences as a thought leader in cloud storage. As a result, a COO was needed. Using a football analogy, Andres takes on the role of Bill Belichick, gathering as much information as possible to improve his company, while Scott takes on the role of Tom Brady. As CFO/COO, he must help coordinate the rest of the Nasuni team and devise an offensive plan of action. He also has to make sure the plan is executed properly, and adjusted accordingly. 

Scott, being a seasoned executive in the realm of cloud-based technology and software, did not hesitate to explain to me what Nasuni is and how it works. His technical knowledge was deeper than I would have expected from an employee with a finance and accounting background. Nasuni provides cloud-based software that focuses on storing unstructured data (think: files on your computer). It is a global network that prides itself on being accessible at all locations of a business and one that is infinitely scalable. Nasuni software automatically provides enterprise-class security and backup on all data stored within its system, being able to seamlessly integrate data so that the most up to date files are available to all locations within a company. This is done through an appliance, that allows for the software to be accessed – but it’s the software that’s the real magic.

Talking with Scott was an eye opening experience. What Nasuni is doing with cloud-based technology and software is not only interesting, but could be the next step in the realm of data storage. I asked Scott what has changed since StorageNetworks to now that enhances the opportunity for Nasuni in the cloud storage space. Technology and the buyer’s mindset were the two most important changes according to Scott. Nasuni’s technology is superior to any other technology ever developed to allow for performance, scalability, and security from a cloud-based solution. And today, customers want to buy their computing needs as a service, where as at StorageNetworks the market did not think that way, making it harder to sell.  

While Nasuni is doing well, Scott does not think the time is right to access the public markets yet. He would like to see the company deepen its hold in the market and continue to expand its customer base. Despite this fact, Scott thinks that Nasuni will be ready to go public in the next few years. Based on my trip to Nasuni don’t be surprised if in the near future your company is using Nasuni for all its data storage needs.

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