Lott: I've been in the technology industry for over twenty years. Most of that experience has been in the role of VP of Human Resources for companies that range from computer peripheral companies to software and telecom. I was with Alcatel for a number of years and perhaps most notably I was with Sybase for over 7 years and helped grow that organization from its pre-public stage to a leader in the database market. I have also worked recently with start-ups in the role of VP of Corporate Services so have been involved both with IT administration and finance. During my time with Sybase I led the development of one of their first web-based internal applications for managers and manager self-service. I ran the HRIT organization responsible for building internal solutions for manager's self-service.

I think from an industry standpoint having been involved in hardware, telecom and software has given me a valuable perspective. You get a sense for what some of the common business themes and business problems are. I think that is one of the pluses that I've gotten out of being in so many different types of businesses. I have also had the opportunity to be involved in very small business as well as businesses that were on a fast growth path - so I have also developed an understanding of the different dynamics and requirements in each of those environments. When you add to that my experience in finance as well as human resources; being involved in IT, legal and related fields have given me a sense for a number of the business disciplines that are important to understand if you're going to start your own business. Of course it also gives you a real understanding of the infrastructure within most businesses and the business processes and relationships that exist and that need to function together effectively.

OV: What was your path toward Bridgestream and what prompted you to join the company?

Lott: Interestingly enough, some of the work we were doing at Sybase, which was just at the point where companies were starting to move from expert user applications to web-based, end user facing applications with an emphasis on productivity being driven by bringing applications down to the employee level desk top. During the late 90s I became aware of the internet as a delivery mechanism across the organization. This was about the same time that I was involved in helping design and then roll out the first manager's self-service application for Sybase that combined financial management for compensation planning as a compensation planning tool. One of the challenges we needed to address was how we could manage the dynamics of change in a business. When you are trying to bring information to the individual user whether that is an employee, a customer or supplier there are complexities associated with real-time delivery in organizations that are constantly changing. We realized this was a problem that all organizations faced and would have to solve. We had a unique combination of an understanding of how businesses work internally -- especially at the business process/business policy level -- and an understanding of the solutions that were expected to deliver information in ways that really assumed that they understood what the business process looks like. Bridgestream really came out of this notion that if you want to manage on-going user and organizational changes and keep information about employees or customers and suppliers current, you really need to understand the business relationships; the business reason that people are interacting with each other. Through those business relationships you get to appreciate that there can be a rules-driven approach to managing authorities and privileges and that this information is very important to systems for any large enterprise. That was the nucleus of our thinking that led to Bridgestream.

Bridgestream has created this central repository that captures very complex relationships between employees, customers and outsourced services providers -- - between any group of users-- we then provide a rules engine that interprets those relationships into authorities for enterprise applications and systems, for portals, for digital rights management, for any number of uses; but that's where the original idea started. The notion that you really do need to take the business perspective when you're thinking about it rather than thinking about it from a systems management perspective which I think a lot of companies have taken a different approach than we have.

I brought in two people I had a relationship with through Sybase; Linda Esperance is the co-founder and Hal Spitz who at the time had worked in several small companies as VP Engineering and had also done some pretty creative things at Sybase. I knew Hal was the kind of individual who could take this idea and help us think about how we might need to approach it from a development and architectural standpoint. The three of us were really the beginning nucleus of Bridgestream.

OV: What are some of the short-term goals for Bridgestream?

Lott: The short-term goals are really clear. We've been very fortunate in our ability to land, even with our 1.x product line, a major customer (a major financial institution). We now have over 150,000 employees using our product. With this investment our plans over the next 12 months are really going to be focused on building on that initial customer base by bringing on the next three to five customers that will help us further refine both how the product is being developed and brought into the large enterprise and also help us refine the marketing and positioning of our technology. This is going to be a period where we focus on adding several key referenceable customers to our existing customer base and in that process learn more about and refine our marketing and value proposition.

2005 is the year that we hope to really leverage the company and see significant growth.

OV: What were some of the challenges you identified before starting Bridgestream, and have they changed today?

Lott: There were a couple of things. One of the key challenges was really getting a deep enough understanding of the customer base to make sure that we were focusing and approaching the product from the right perspective. That required us to find ways to get in front of as many CIOs, VPs of IT as we could. That was not the easiest thing to do. That required a major effort, especially as a small company and during the years we were just talking about.

I think the other major issue for us was that we knew that this company really had an idea that was valuable; but we needed to figure out a way to get the kind of investment capital that was necessary to take us forward and at the same time be creative about sustaining the business as we went after that capital. That was something that really took some creativity on our part and we learned a lot about how to sustain a business and cash management and all of those things which were very important for us. I'm sure for any small company that is trying to get traction those are things that you need to understand.

OV: What should the audience be looking for in the near term from Bridgestream and from you?

Lott: What they will see in Bridgestream is a very clear and strong business case for a new technology that is core to every large enterprise. The kinds of companies, Fortune 3000, that we're talking toare going to give us a very strong referenceable ROI story in the market. Over the next several months we hope to crystallize as we close new business and be able to bring to the market a very clear sense of why it matters and what our product is doing is solving a very unique requirement for the enterprise. With that hopefully we will get increased interest in the product and the ability to scale and grow the business even further. I think the next six months is really going to be about understanding our story and getting it out to the marketplace.

OV: What are some of the trends going forward that will mean success for Bridgestream and be of interest to our audience?

Lott: The trends that we see are the following: The combination of this notion of productivity being driven by applications in the hands of individuals who are running the business is a major trend that we think is going to mean a very positive opportunity for us in the market going forward. Add to that this notion of how companies want to think about information delivery through portals for example. Again, this is something that really speaks to the kind of things that we're going to be able to do uniquely well. I think the continuing regulatory environment whether it's about Sarbanes Oxley, Graham Leach, HIPPA or that next set of regulatory requirements , those things are forcing us to look at systems in a way that requires an ability to think about authorities and information access in a much more granular way with much more of an ability to control secure access. That's going to be a major driver for us and I think for software going forward. I think this notion of how we can further drive productivity in organizations by removing costs through outsourcing is also an area that is well suited to what we're doing. We have a particular point of view about information in the hands of the people that need it that require us to think very differently about how organizations look and how they work and how systems can support that. All of those I think are kind of the changes of the next 5-10 years that are going to be important and create the right environment for technology such as ours.

OV: In the current economy how do you execute on selling to your customers? How do you get dollars out of budgets? How do you get the new sale?

Lott: I think that what it takes is probably not that different than what it's always been about. I don't know an IT executive or any other that will not be interested to buy a solution that does the job better with reduced cost. If you can provide a compelling ROI that is a clearly demonstrable solution to one, solving a problem and doing it well and two, doing it in an environment where you can clearly demonstrate that you can remove the cost associated with doing it or at least reduce that cost, I think that's the answer for us even in our initial sales activities where we've talked to executives about the product, they are clearly in a place today where they are looking at ways to reduce the operating costs associated with running their portion of the business. If you have the right story and you have a solution that really delivers I don't think it's much more complicated than that. I think that's why we're getting the traction that we're seeing. These are companies that clearly understand the cost of doing business the way they're doing it now and if we can simply prove that we've got a solution that works and can reduce that cost it becomes a much easier sell than you might think.

We believe that we're going to require getting the opportunity to get in front of the right people. We absolutely believe that we've got a strong story and a product that's going to resonate with almost any Fortune 5000 CIO/IT executive. We're really excited to get going.

OV: What is the biggest challenge that you, as a CEO, face today?

Lott: I think the biggest challenge is the speed at which you need to keep things moving to make all of this happen. Also the ability to stay ahead of the curve as new solutions enter the market - we need to be able to seek out additional new opportunities for our business. From where I sit it's about how quickly you can execute against the things you know you need to do and so my concern on a day-to-day basis is to stay focused on just those right things that move us forward and not spend much time or any time on things that are not really fundamentally critical to the business. And for us today that's about selling and bringing the right team on board so we can get into the market.

OV: In closing, please feel free to comment on anything that you think would be of interest to the audience of the newsletter.

Lott: From the perspective of any early stage CEO who has been in this market over the last two or three very difficult years, I really do see a tremendous amount of upside and potential. I believe that we are again, at the front end of another upturn in the market that's going to have all of our boats floating a little bit higher. I think there are some really interesting opportunities out there for new technologies and that there is more upside coming. It may be slowly and not as unbounded as we experienced in the late nineties; but I believe that there is a steady but certain improvement in this market and that a lot of businesses are going to be able to take advantage of it. This is absolutely the right time to be investing in the right technologies going forward. I think there is nothing but good news ahead.

OV: Juanita, thank you very much for your time today. I'm sure that our readers will enjoy reading about Bridgestream and yourself in the upcoming issue of the Outlook Ventures newsletter.

About Bridgestream: Bridgestream provides a simple, cost effective solution for real-time authorization management. Our application uniquely manages on-going user and organizational changes, that are impossible to capture manually, and automatically updates other systems and applications across the enterprise. With Bridgestream, Fortune 3000 companies decrease the cost of managing user authorization data, increase productivity with timely and appropriate data access, and ensure regulatory compliance.