Frederic Kerrest
- Executive Vice Chairman, Chief Operating Officer & Co-Founder, Okta, Inc.
San Francisco
As seen in:
LinkedIn,
MSN,
Business Insider,
Mashable,
TechCrunch,
Fast Company,
Fortune,
Forum Stories (World Economic Forum),
Inc.,
Quartz
and
Technology entrepreneur, investor and advisor.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Frederic Kerrest
Frederic Kerrest on LinkedIn: I'm excited to announce the launch of my new business Kerrest & Company, a…
Agree & Join LinkedIn By clicking Continue to join or sign in, you agree to LinkedIn’s User Agreement, Privacy Policy, and Cookie Policy. Skip to main content More from this author Explore topics Create your free account or sign in to continue your search or New to LinkedIn? Join now or New to LinkedIn? Join now
Brand Strategy For Startups
Launching a startup comes with numerous challenges that need to be overcome. For early-stage CEOs, their main concerns typically revolve around product development and securing seed funding for growth. However, many fail to recognize the importance of brand building, often considering it a lesser priority. In reality, brand building is as crucial to early success as product development and fundraising.
Startup Strategy: Making People Care
There is a lot of positive energy, excitement and passion that surrounds startups and fresh entrepreneurs who have a vision of how they can impact the planet according to their own slant on the world. Truth is, nobody cares. Not really. Sure, your mentor may care. Your spouse may care. Your startup investors may even care — a little (but remember they have other startup investments to protect them in case you run aground).
The Internal Brand Makeover That Now Drives Uber
Problem Detection is one of marketing’s most effective strategies. Profitably solving and satisfying customer problems is the aim of marketing. So, marketers tend to focus problem detection on customers. But, as brand-business’ know, having motivated, committed, proud and loyal employees is a most critical factor in brand-business success. Recent research from Deloitte, the global services group, re-confirms the fundamental principle that loyal employees generate loyal customers.
Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution
What listeners say about Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution Average Customer Ratings Overall 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.4 out of 5.0 5 Stars 6 4 Stars 0 3 Stars 0 2 Stars 0 1 Stars 1 Performance 5 out of 5 stars 4.8 out of 5.0 5 Stars 5 4 Stars 1 3 Stars 0 2 Stars 0 1 Stars 0 Story 4.5 out of 5 stars 4.3 out of 5.0 5 Stars 5 4 Stars 0 3 Stars 0 2 Stars 0 1 Stars 1 Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
The Strategy Behind Neiman Marcus’s Brand Revitalization
Everyone in retail has heard the apocryphal story about how Stanley Marcus, known to all as Mr. Stanley, would greet his customers at the Neiman Marcus door in Dallas every morning. He knew his customers by name, knew what they wanted and treated them as the VIPs they were. They returned the favor by giving Mr. Stanley and his Neiman Marcus store their lifelong loyalty. But then Neiman Marcus was sold to Carter-Hawley Hale, Mr. Stanley went into emeritus mode and the company grew.
How Startups Can Build A Risk-Taking Culture
Startups are, by definition, risk-taking operations. They go up against giant corporations that are better funded and more firmly entrenched. They upend industries. None of that happens by following tried-and-true paths. It only happens by plunging into the unknown. Founders aren’t the only ones who need to be comfortable with ambiguity. In the early years, everyone in your company must be ready to shoulder risk. Not just in their initial decision to join your unproven startup.
Mergers Need Clear Purpose For Cultural Compatibility
Merging a company is hard to do. Yet it can be incredibly fulfilling and empowering for leaders and for employees. Mergers present both opportunity and anxiety. Possibilities are endless for leaders to transform both entities and use the new start to set a new direction with a performance culture. At the same time, change creates anxiety as many people are forced to think outside their default behavior zone. Mergers put human behavior on the front lines.
Approaching Start-Ups As Experiments
As anyone managing or advising startups knows, it’s not easy to step back from the daily fires that need to be put out to focus on the longer-term goals of building the business and going to market. Yet stepping back is often exactly what the doctor orders. So let’s step way back and see what we see. I have advised startups for more than twenty years, and simultaneously have designed and run behavioral experiments for my academic research for over thirty-five.
How To Prioritize 101 (With Help From Dwight D. Eisenhower)
Tien Tzuo, my Salesforce colleague and the founder of Zuora, told me a story about a friend of his who moved to a startup after working at a large Fortune 500 company. There, he’d overseen an army of people and spent his days tracking 50 separate “top” priorities. “But now I’m in a startup,” he’d told Tien, “and I know I can’t get all 50 things done.” So he’d narrowed down his list to the 10 most important things.
I Co-Founded Okta and Then I Nearly Killed It. Here’s How We Survived.
Expert Contributors Built In’s expert contributor network publishes thoughtful, solutions-oriented stories written by innovative tech professionals. It is the tech industry’s definitive destination for sharing compelling, first-person accounts of problem-solving on the road to innovation. Learn More Great Companies Need Great People. That's Where We Come In. Recruit With Us
Managing Your Mental Health While Running a Startup
This is an excerpt from Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs by Frederic Kerrest, pp. 164-171, (McGraw Hill, April 2022). Kerrest co-founded Okta – an enterprise identity management company – in 2009 and currently serves as its executive vice chairperson and chief operating officer. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about work-life balance, and I think the sentiment is well intentioned, but it overlooks a key opportunity.
Managing Your Mental Health While Running a Startup
This is an excerpt from Zero to IPO: Over $1 Trillion of Actionable Advice from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs by Frederic Kerrest, pp. 164-171, (McGraw Hill, April 2022). Kerrest co-founded Okta – an enterprise identity management company – in 2009 and currently serves as its executive vice chairperson and chief operating officer. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about work-life balance, and I think the sentiment is well intentioned, but it overlooks a key opportunity.
Eight Qualities Startup Founders Must Possess
Do you have what it takes to be a founder? Founders are all unique. Steve Jobs was different from Mark Zuckerberg. Katrina Lake is different from Elon Musk. Bill Gates is different from Arianna Huffington. Despite these differences, though, they all share eight qualities. Does this look like you? 1. The ability to thrive in ambiguity. Running a startup means never having near as much information as you’d like when it comes to making important decisions.
6 tips for building a successful risk-taking culture
Encouraging a risk-taking approach in business could mean that innovative and unconventional ideas are unlocked. This is according to Frederic Kerrest, co-founder of software company Okta and author of new book Zero to Ipo. He introduces 6 practices for entrepreneurs, such as ensuring good communication and making work enjoyable, which are key to building a successful risk-taking culture.
6 tips for building a successful risk-taking culture
What do you do when your contacts list includes C-suite executives from Amazon to Zoom? If you’re Frederic Kerrest, you take all that business experience and put it into a book designed to help entrepreneurs at every stage of a startup. In “Zero to IPO,” publishing in April 2022, Kerrest weaves anecdotes and advice from fellow founders and entrepreneurs into his own story about founding identity management company Okta.
Eyeing an IPO? Here's What You Need to Know Before You Decide to Go Public
There's endless advice out there about the path to an initial public offering. I've contributed plenty on this topic in my co-hosted podcast Zero to IPO, where I equally enjoy sharing my experiences and hearing those of others. There's no denying that everything on the path to IPO, including the famed roadshow, is all-consuming and that we all benefit from advice here.
As an Entrepreneur, Think You Have No Time to Read Books? Think Again
No matter how you spent the last year, it was a stressful one. Whether you were homeschooling kids, taking care of elderly family members, or simply navigating how to keep yourself safe and healthy, reading was probably low on your priority list. My advice: make time for it. I am lucky to have a job managing a public company and it keeps me busy. But between hosting Zoom meetings with customers and helping with homeschooling, I still managed to read close to 30 books this year.
I cofounded a $30 billion company with offices in 10 countries. Here are 5 best practices that have helped us tremendously with international growth. Original
Frederic Kerrest is executive vice chairman, COO, and cofounder at Okta, which has offices in 10 countries. He says prioritizing global teams' needs and learning from their cultures is crucial. Assign virtual flag bearers from HQ and diligently create useful resource hubs. See more stories on Insider's business page. A year into the pandemic, I'd wager most companies don't have a fully-formed remote or hybrid work strategy; some companies will never fully shift to remote work.
Blog | Okta
5 Principles for Building Scalable Apps That Delight Customers Designing and deploying an app is rarely simple. Customer needs are constantly evolving and your app probably looks and functions much differently today than when it was first released.
The 5 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read in 2021
The year 2020 was challenging for everyone, and entrepreneurs were no exception--we've faced a unique set of challenges few other generations of founders can say they've experienced when building a business. With a pandemic requiring many people to rethink how they work (or whether they even can), worries about employees' health and wellness, and a global recession impacting venture capital funding, starting businesses and running startups has never been more difficult.
A plan for fighting burnout after a year of extreme stress Original
There’s no denying that 2020 has been a difficult year. From a global pandemic to an economic downturn to the racial justice movement, we’ve had a lot to contend with. I am lucky to have been in a fortunate position: My role as COO of the tech company I co-founded gives me stability and the option to work from home. But I won’t sugarcoat it: With three young kids, a wife who works in healthcare, the demands of managing a public company, and many other factors, it’s been a tough year.
We're getting 3 key things wrong when we talk about the long-term impact COVID is going to have on the way we work, according to the cofounder and COO of $32 billion Okta
Frederic Kerrest is the executive vice chairman, COO, and cofounder of Okta, an identity authentication and access management company. While people are leaving tech hubs and employers are allowing permanent remote work, Kerrest says we need to be realistic about long-term work trends. Many Fortune 500 companies are still physical businesses: oil, pharmaceuticals, airplanes, and hotels, among others.
I cofounded Okta — now a $26 billion company — during the 2008 recession. I've learned that while passion is critical, it won't be enough to drive success during a downturn.
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now. Starting a company is challenging and anyone who tells you differently hasn't done it. One report found that 500 startups failed in 2019, but I suspect the number was actually much higher, maybe even in the thousands or tens of thousands. Over 500,000 businesses are started each month and research shows more than half of them will go out of business within five years.
How a startup's first big customer can make or break success
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read As a startup founder, landing your first big customer can feel like a chicken-and-the-egg scenario: big brands want to see case studies to prove the value of your product before they sign a contract, but you need brand name customers to feature as case studies. Once you ink your first deal and make that organization successful, however, that prospect can serve as validation for future customers of what your product can do.
How startups can survive and thrive in the coronavirus recession
By Frederic Kerrest3 minute Read The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant ramifications on the economy. One survey found that because of the virus, 31% of small and medium-sized businesses had to close down completely, and 41% of owners had to dip into their personal savings to stay afloat. While these numbers sound grim, a downturn can actually be a great time to start a new business. In the coming months, we’ll see a lot of disruption, dislocation, and new opportunities.
The most important startup rule: Play the long game
By Frederic Kerrest3 minute Read When my cofounder and I started Okta, we were focused on a particular type of customer: small-to-medium-size businesses investing in cloud technology. But over the years, we broadened our focus to include any organization looking to modernize—from government agencies and nonprofits to the world’s largest organizations. Many of these customers use our technology in ways we would have never imagined back in 2009.
What the thrill of victory—and the agony of defeat—taught this Olympian about starting a company
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read Professional athletes and entrepreneurs have a lot more in common than you might think. Both need to deal with intense competition, commit to their goals, constantly improve, and handle plenty of setbacks. And each can learn a lot from the other, too. This week on Zero to IPO, we spoke with the CEOs and founders of two software companies—Tien Tzuo of Zuora, and Integrate‘s Jeremy Bloom, a former Olympic skier and NFL football player.
Here's why you need experience in sales regardless of your career path or industry you want to work in, according to Okta's cofounder
This story is available exclusively on Business Insider Prime. Join BI Prime and start reading now. Frederic Kerrest is the executive vice chairman, COO, and cofounder of Okta, an identity authentication and access management company. Kerrest says he spent the majority of his early career working in sales, which might seem surprising to those who know him now as an executive at a software company.
The most valuable sales lesson: You need to know what you don’t know
By Frederic Kerrest5 minute Read “Nothing happens until someone sells something.”—Arthur “Red” Motley When you’re building a new business, sales is one of the hardest but most critical things to get right. A good salesperson will drive your top-line growth—but getting those early hires wrong can be disastrous. After you’ve found some investors, built your product, and hired a few employees, you have to be intentional about finding, hiring, compensating, and retaining your sales team.
How Zoom came to dominant videoconferencing platform
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read Startup stories are usually told in one of two ways. The first: an entrepreneur is struck by sudden inspiration. There’s a montage of the founder scribbling ideas on a whiteboard and shaking hands with investors, and then boom—the founder stands triumphantly with confetti falling around them at Nasdaq.
Nonprofits Should Be As Powerful As Their Missions: Our $10 Million
At Okta, we’ve always believed in the power of technology to transform and scale mission-driven organizations. It’s been the centerpiece of our work with Okta for Good since its founding. And when we say that our mission is to strengthen the connections between people, technology and community — we mean it. It’s the north star that continues to guide us in our philanthropy and social impact work.
Blog | Okta
Zero to IPO Season 2 Sneak Peek: A Conversation with Zoom and MikMak The entrepreneurial journey is often portrayed by the media as a glamorous transition from founding to funding to IPO. In movies and on TV, startups are buzzing innovation hubs with ping pong tables and kombucha on tap. Either that, or a company goes up in smoke, and then is profiled in a ruthless documentary series. But as every entrepreneur —… What to Expect at Oktane20 Live (Part 2) Excited for Oktane20 Live?
5 Books to Guide You Through Entrepreneurship in the New Decade
It's hard to believe the 2010s are over and we're already two months into 2020. The start of a new decade gives us all an opportunity to reflect on where we've been and, more important, plan for what's ahead. As an entrepreneur and avid reader, I've always believed books can have a powerful influence on the way we think about our goals and achievements. I recently read a number of books offering interesting perspectives on the different ways people have succeeded and failed at running companies.
4 Ways Startups Can Kick Off a Social Impact Program
For entrepreneurs deep in the throes of building a company from the ground up, creating a social impact program is rarely a top priority. Building a formal program can seem daunting and time consuming, but committing to giving back in the early days doesn't have to be a grand gesture or investment-- you just have to start.
5 Books to Inspire Entrepreneurs on the Road to Success
Ever since co-founding Okta over 10 years ago, I've been interested in learning about other entrepreneurs' journeys and helping other leaders bring their visions to life. We all start with an initial idea and run into roadblocks as we grow, but how does each leader overcome those challenges? What does it take to go from two people at a borrowed desk to thousands of employees working on a billion dollar problem?
Blog | Okta
The Production Line: The Administrator Console In this edition of The Production Line, we’re switching gears, and taking a slight detour from citing a feature you may not know about, to one that all Okta admins call home—the Administrator Console.
Best-of-Breed vs. Suites: Growth of Slack and Zoom Across the Okta
By now you’ve likely heard the debate about the growth and adoption of Microsoft Teams vs. Slack. We wanted to bring a different perspective to this conversation based on the trends we're seeing across our network of thousands of companies, applications, and technology integrations, and millions of daily authentications and verifications.
What to do after taking your company public
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read It’s the first day of the rest of your life, but also the end of the beginning. This is how some entrepreneurs might describe taking their company public. The IPO signifies years of hard work and many impossible decisions along the way, and is a significant accomplishment for any company. But it’s not the end at all.
5 founders weigh in on the highs and lows of the IPO
By Frederic Kerrest5 minute Read Entrepreneurs pour massive amounts of time and energy into building a team, developing new products, creating a culture, and raising money to reach what many consider “the big milestone:” an initial public offering. Every founder who went through an IPO can agree that “ringing the bell” to open the trading day at Nasdaq or on the NYSE feels surreal.
How to set yourself up to land the big wins in your career and personal life
By Frederic Kerrest 4 minute Read Golden State Warriors player Andre Iguodala has always excelled under pressure. Back when he was a teenager in 2001, Iguodala’s AAU National Championship semifinal game was coming down to the wire. He was one of the best players on the team, and his opponents were guarding him aggressively. Suddenly, with two seconds left on the clock, a teammate passed him the ball. He was far from the net, just across half court. There was no time to dribble, no time to think.
The founders of Salesforce and Udacity share advice on staying fresh at work
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read For the fortunate entrepreneurs that have the opportunity to grow their companies from two to 200 or 20,000 employees, they’ll likely encounter a unique challenge–keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive at every phase. You might have successfully navigated many long and winding roads, and now face miles of open road ahead. How do you stay excited and continually bring new ideas to the table?
The founders of Workday and Eventbrite share the dos and don’ts of raising capital
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read Entrepreneurs often have to make difficult decisions about how to fund their business. If you plan on building a long-term independent company, at some point, you can no longer rely on the friends and family who invested in your angel round. You need to attract the attention of professional investors, who themselves get money from large limited partners. Those investors are in the home run game–they only bet on grand slam ideas.
These are the keys to maintaining company culture during growth
By Frederic Kerrest5 minute Read When starting out, it’s common for founders to handpick every team member and get to know them on a personal level. But there comes a point when it’s no longer possible to do this as hiring needs multiply and employee headcount grows. Eventually, every successful entrepreneur reaches a point where he or she looks around and wonders, “Who are all these people?
5 lessons for building a long-lasting company culture
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read Company culture is hard to define, but it’s woven into everything a company does. It’s the reason employees love or hate their jobs, or customers can feel valued or ignored. Like reputation, it takes years to build a good culture, but only a few missteps to mess it all up. That’s why smart founders focus on developing company culture from day one and work like mad to protect it for the duration.
How entrepreneurs navigate the difficult moments they’ll inevitably face
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read The media often portrays the startup founder’s journey as a glamorous one. Here’s how the story usually goes: entrepreneur comes up with a brilliant idea, finds investors to fund it, builds a perfect initial product, nails down his or her first customers, and uses that momentum to grow the business at a fast pace. But while the news may emphasize the positives, an entrepreneur’s journey often takes a few dark twists and turns.
Entrepreneurs Share How They Survived Their Bootstrapping Days
These innovators have come a long way from eating noodles out of a cup every day and working out of a garage. Every entrepreneur knows the stories of successful founders who started in a garage. William Hewlett and David Packard produced electronic test equipment, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built computers, Jeff Bezos sold books, Larry Page and Sergey Brin created a search engine.
How to close a deal successfully
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read The first big win is a pivotal moment in an entrepreneur’s journey. It’s that deal that takes your startup from small fry to major player, while infusing the team with newfound confidence and energy. I remember Okta’s first big win like it was yesterday. It was the opposite of smooth. I was traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the pitch, and on the way to the airport, I realized that I had scheduled my flight for the wrong day.
Entrepreneurs share how they survived their bootstrapping days
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read Every entrepreneur knows the stories of successful founders who started in a garage. William Hewlett and David Packard produced electronic test equipment, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built computers, Jeff Bezos sold books, Larry Page and Sergey Brin created a search engine.
4 questions that entrepreneurs must ask themselves
By Frederic Kerrest4 minute Read Every entrepreneur knows that as soon as you’ve cleared a hurdle and are celebrating a success, a new challenge arises. My good friend and Okta CFO Bill Losch sounds like a broken record every January when he tells me: “Freddy, now this is going to be our most important year yet.” He’s right, and he reinforces a message I’ve shared with entrepreneurs over the years: No matter the stage of your company, it’s always about what comes next.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Frederic
Contact Frederic, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack