As developers build new features into software, they have to be sure that they don't break what's already there. They use a technique of placing feature flags in the code to roll it out slowly. This is a proven way of controlling the roll out. That is where Unleash comes in.
Unleash is a feature management solution. It lets you define the rules of segmenting users so that you can have full control over how you enable a new function. He said that this approach allows a lot more experimentation and reduces the risk of putting something into the production code base that will cause a major issue for users.
The company where he was working had a problem with feature management. He started working on a solution in his spare time. He nurtured the project for several years after releasing Unleash as an open source, as he continued to work as an engineer.
He saw an opening for a commercial venture when companies began requesting enterprise features for the tool. Ivar and his brother Egil decided to start a company together to build a commercial layer on top of the open source product that Ivar had developed.
By the end of last year, I started to see a lot of people reaching out to ask about enterprise functions in open source. I received an email from a company that asked if I could just host it for them so they don't have to. He said that this was an early signal and that he brought in Egil to start the company.
The company launched its first commercial offering, a hosted version of Unleash, in the spring of 2019. Two men left their day jobs to work full time for the company.
Egil, who became CEO, has a background in management and business, and the two brothers began talking to companies to see how viable this idea could be as a commercial business.
The company has moved away from pure open source to an open core model with enterprise features like single sign-on available for a fee to customers that need an additional layer of security.
Egil said that diversity is an important issue for him and his brother as they build the company. To hold them accountable, he wants them to report to the board on a monthly basis how well they are doing from a candidate perspective.
We decided to report on a monthly basis on the diversity of our candidates to the board of directors. This is one of the metrics that we will report to them, and it means that whenever we are filling up the candidate pipeline, we need to report those numbers, and whether we are inside or outside of those diversity numbers.
40% of the company's customers are in the U.S. and Canada, another 40% are in the EU and the rest are spread around the world. They have plans to double that by the end of the year.
As the business begins to take off, the startup should have the capital to invest. Today's investment was led by Spark Capital with participation from a number of companies.
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