When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`vator news
`When Zoom was young: the early
`years
`
`Steven Loeb
`
`·
`
` March 26, 2020
`
`·
`
` Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/4fd4
`
`Zoom was originally known as Saasbee, had 500,000 users in less than
`six months
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Our when they were young series is a look back at the modes days of sartups, what traction they had in their
`frs few years, and how they evolved. In the end, we hope to provide a glimpse into what great sartups looked
`like in their frs three years.
`
`Stories like these are always well received because it reminds us that anyone, regardless of pedigree and
`environment, can rise above the noise and have great infuence. They show us the value of being resilient,
`persisent, and committed. If we can follow their footseps, maybe we too can have similar success.
`
`This segment is on Zoom.
`
`Founder: Eric Yuan
`
`— Zoom's Firs Year —
`
`Founded: Zoom, originally known as Saasbee, is incorporated in the sate of Delaware in April 2011.
`
`Initial company description : Saasbee is founded while Yuan is sill working at Cisco's WebEx Cisco video
`conferencing business, after noticing that WebEx was not keeping up with what cusomers were demanding. 
`
`"When we built WebEx, we only focused on one use case. That use case was to have you share the
`PowerPoint or share the desktop, but it can’t be you and I in an audio conference. But 13 or 14 years later,
`there are some brand-new problems," Yuan says in a 2018 interview with GGV Capital.
`
`"Like every business, they have got to use multiple solutions. They want to enable conference room. They want
`to have video conferencing and have one unifed solution. They wanted to have a cloud-based conference
`room solution. You wanted to make sure no matter where that team is coming from, we also can guarantee
`good voice over IP quality and video quality. WebEx was not designed for that."
`
`Personnel, at two months from founding : Yuan leaves Cisco in June 2011 , bringing 40 of the company's
`engineers with him.
`
`Firs funding, at two months from founding : In June 2011, Saasbee  raises $3 million in seed funding from
`TSVC, WebEX founder Subrah Iyar, Matt Ocko, Dan Scheinman and Bill Tai.
`
`"In early 2011, Apple jus launched FaceTime; SKYPE
`had been popular for many years; In addition, giant
`CISCO acquired WEBEX for $3.2B in 2009, and
`another sartup company doing cloud-based video
`conferencing, BlueJeans, had already raised tens of
`millions of dollars. It was not clear whether there is sill
`room for another player like Zoom in this seemly
`crowded and competitive track. Many professional
`invesors expected a very low probability of success
`for another new-comer and turned down the
`opportunity," TSVC writes in 2019.
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`"However, TEEC Angel Fund, along with other angel invesors, such as successful entrepreneur Samuel,
`WebEx co-founder Susan, TeleNav founder HP, Fortinet founder Ken, WebEx executive Steven, decided to bet
`on the mos important factor, the founder, the seersman, Eric Yuan."
`
`
`
`— Zoom's Second Year —
`
`Name change, at one year and one month from founding : In May 2012, the company  changes its name to
`Zoom Video Communications, Inc. 
`
`The name "Zoom"  comes from Jim Scheinman , Founding Managing Partner at Maven Ventures and cousin of
`Dan Scheinman. He bases it on a book he is reading to his kids called "Zoom City."
`
`"I loved this fun little book as much as my kids, and hoped to use the name someday for the perfect company
`that embodied the same values of creativity, exploration, happiness, and trus. And the name works perfectly
`with a product that connects us visually to one another and that always works so fas and seamlessly. With
`Eric’s sartup, I found jus that. I’d been saving the name Zoom for a long time, and I’m so grateful that Eric
`trused me to help him name his company," he writes in 2019.
`
`"Jim has been great to work with from the launch of Zoom, he gets along with everyone and is there to help on
`anything we need. His contacts in the business and venture community have been invaluable. And, not only did
`he come up with the name Zoom (we were calling ourselves saasbee), but he also helped us create our
`marketing srategy and language, go to market launch and PR srategy, and has introduced us to key
`consultants and employees. Jim's been an integral part of our success to date that has culminated in an
`amazing introduction to and review of Zoom by Walt Mossberg at the WSJ. We truly couldn't have done this
`without Jim's help," Yuan writes on Scheinman's LinkedIn profle in 2012.
`
`Launch, at one year and four months from founding : In Augus 2012, Zoom  launches the frs version of its
`product, allowing up to 15 people to video chat at once.
`
`“Today, group video meetings are the realm of
`businesses, but they can be hard to facilitate. Users
`have separate accounts for each video calling
`application, which require them to remember diferent
`usernames and passwords, and the video quality is
`often poor,”  Yuan says in a satement.
`
`“zoom.us takes the complexity out of connecting to
`friends and colleagues by ofering a single-click
`solution that works whether you are on an iPad using
`Wi-Fi, an iPhone using Edge or a PC connected to
`Ethernet and lets everyone participate in the
`conversation seamlessly. We have seen in enterprise
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`business how video transforms communication and
`collaboration – we want to bring that to everyone with
`
`zoom.us.”
`
`Press coverage, at one year and four months from founding : In Augus 2012, Zoom is reviewed by Walt
`Mossberg for the Wall Street Journal.
`
`"I’ve been tesing Zoom.us, and despite a few limitations, I like it a lot and can recommend it. In all but one of
`in a written
`my tess, video was sharp and smooth, and all the features worked as promised," Mossberg says 
`review entitled, "A Chance to Call 15 Friends to Video Chat in High Def."
`
`"One caveat: I tesed a pre-release version at a time when there were only about 1,000 people using the
`service. It’s possible that if millions use it, speed and quality could sufer, though the company denies that."
`
`Firs cusomer, at one year and seven months from founding, three months from launch : In November
`as its frs
`2012, Zoom signs up Stanford Continuing Studies, Stanford's continuing adult education program, 
`cusomer.
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`"They were looking for a solution for their online learning, online teaching platform and were sill in the alpha
`phase, and they tesed all the solutions, and they sill found Zoom quality was better. And before our solution
`was fully ready, they already became our paid cusomer and really boosed our confdence. That was our frs
`cusomer," says Yuan. 
`
`Product, at one year and nine months from founding, fve months from launch : In January 2013, Zoom
`releases its Unifed Meeting Experience (UMX) cloud service , which allows 25 people to participate at once,
`either up to 40 minutes with its free version or unlimited with its $9.99 business plan.
`
`"Zoom has taken a high-quality and ease-of-use approach to transform the real-time collaboration experience
`for companies of all sizes," says Yuan .  "UMX is a comprehensive 3-in-1 and scalable platform that fosers
`more efective communications across businesses and geographic boundaries."
`
`Second funding, at one year and nine months from founding, fve months from launch : In January 2013,
`Zoom raises a $6 million Series A from Qualcomm Ventures, Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, Iyar and Dan
`Scheinman.
`
`"It all sarted with a 45-minute phone call back in early 2012. Having been a previous video entrepreneur for 5
`years, my boss at the time Nagraj Kashyap had asked me to evaluate an early-sage video communications
`company founded by an indusry veteran named Eric Yuan, referred to him by angel invesor Bill Tai (thank you
`Nagraj and Bill!)," Sachin Deshpande, Senior Director at Qualcomm Ventures, writes in 2017.
`
`"I put the phone down and sared at it intensely. I was transfxed. Sure, I had jus learned about Eric’s terrifc
`background as an engineering leader at Webex and an executive at Cisco. But more importantly, I was totally
`blown away by Eric’s unique vision on the future of video collaboration. Eric had explained his unique technical
`approach, and I felt that it was signifcantly diferent/better than others I had seen in the indusry (from both
`video sartups and Internet giants). Eric essentially had consructed an incredibly well thought-out “Firs
`Principles” multimedia approach for this new multi-device, cloud-based world."
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Traction, at one year and nine months from founding, fve months from launch : In January 2013, Zoom
`reaches over 500,000 participants, has held over 140,000 meetings, and has 1,000 businesses on the platform
`in over 2,500 cities around the world.
`
`
`
`— Zoom's Third Year —
`
`Traction, at two years and one month from founding, nine months from launch
`: In May of 2013 Zoom
`reaches one million participants . It has connected over 400,000 meetings and 3,500 businesses in over 2,500
`cities worldwide.
`
`"We've received overwhelmingly positive responses from our growing cusomer base,"
`satement.
`
` Yuan , says in a
`
`"In the beginning, we had the goal in mind of creating a communication tool that allowed participants to connect
`and share information easily and with the highes-quality from anywhere in the world. With the emergence in
`participants from both businesses and individual professionals, we know we've created the next evolution in
`cloud video collaboration that provides the ultimate afordable, unifed, cross-platform meeting experience for
`everyone."
`
`Product, at two years and three months from founding, 11 months from launch
`: In July 2013, Zoom
`launches its Works With Zoom program , integrating technology from 12 communication and video
`partners: Logitech for Business, Vaddio, InFocus, Altia Sysems, Revolve Robotics, VTEL, VDO360,
`HoverCam, Biscotti, AVer, Acousic Magic and Personify.
`
`“The ‘Works with Zoom’ program is the next sep in Zoom’s continuing mission to ofer afordable, innovative
`meeting solutions. We are excited to partner with these cutting-edge companies and bring over 75 percent
`savings in video collaboration to all businesses,” says Yuan.
`
`Traction, at two years and three months from founding, 11 months from launch : In July 2013, Zoom has
`nearly two million participants, 5,500 meetings/day and 100 million meeting minutes.
`
`Product, at two years and four months from founding, one year from launch
`: In Augus 2013, Zoom
`launches version 2.0 , which adds annotations during screen-sharing, the ability to edit an attendee’s name,
`safe driving mode and a new mobile contacts integration layout.
`
`Third funding, at two years and fve months from founding, one year and one month from launch
`: In
`September 2013, Zoom  raises $6.5 million  in Series B funding led by Horizons Ventures, with Patrick Soon-
`Shiong and Jerry Yang also participating. Bart Swanson, Advisor at Horizon Ventures, joins the Board of
`Directors at Zoom.
`
`"Zoom's mission to develop a people-centric cloud service that transforms the real-time collaboration
`experience," says Yuan. "This capital gives us additional resources to expand quickly into new markets,
`innovate rapidly, and deliver on our vision around the world."
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`TurnSignl - Exhibit 1014
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Traction, at two years and fve months from founding, one year and one month from launch
`September 2013, Zoom has 4,500 businesses on the platform and 3 million participants. 
`
`: In
`
`Press coverage, at two years and six months from founding, one year and two months from launch : In
`October 2013, Zoom is profled on CNBC.
`
`Traction, at two years and eight months from founding, one year and four months from launch : By the
`end of 2013 , Zoom has over 200 million meeting minutes, more than 6 million meeting participants and over
`5,000 businesses sign up.
`
`
`
`— Zoom's Fourth Year —
`
`Product, three years from founding, one year and eight months from launch
`: In April 2014, Zoom
`introduces ZoomPresence , a meeting platform for conference rooms. It allows users to connect
`their touchscreen and monitors to a Mac mini, camera, and speakerphone and allows up to 100 interactive
`video participants and 1,000 webinar viewers.
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`TurnSignl - Exhibit 1014
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Traction, three years and three months from founding, one year and 11 months from launch
`2014, Zoom reached 10 million participants.
`
`: In July
`
`Accolades, three years and three months from founding, one year and 11 months from launch : In July
`2014, AlwaysOn selects Zoom as one of its 250 Top Private Global Companies.
`
`"One look at this year's 12th annual AlwaysOn Global 250 winners, and you can see that the technology
`landscape has changed dramatically during the las decade. New funding options are bringing more sartups
`into being, and while competition has become ferce, the resulting companies that rise above the res are
`proving their worth in today's demanding environment," AlwaysOn writes.
`
`"Cash-rich companies, both public and private, continue to make acquisitions, incorporating both intellectual
`capital and technology into their core products. Successful sartups are waiting for IPO, simulating ultra-high
`valuations, and keeping the venture community on its toes. This year's companies represent a srong, tough
`group of organizations willing to do what it takes to bring that one kernel of an idea from concept to market."
`
`Product, at three years and four months from founding, two years from launch : In Augus 2014, Zoom
`announces version 3.0 which includes group messaging, allowing users to send group text, images and push-
`to-talk messages to anyone on desktop, tablet or mobile devices.
`
`It also introduces screen sharing and annotation, along with Zoom Video Webinar, which allows for up to
`25 interactive video participants and 1,000 webinar viewers to join. It comes with regisration, screen-sharing,
`annotation, MP4 recording, reporting, and a Q&A panel. Users can hold an unlimited number of webinars for
`jus $49 per month with 100 webinar attendees.
`
`Product, at three years and eight months from founding, two years and four months from launch
`: In
`, which includes mobile sharing and the ability to
`December 2014, Zoom  releases version 3.5 of its product
`record meetings to the cloud.
`
`“Zoom has pioneered cloud meetings and video webinars. We are introducing Version 3.5 based on feedback
`from over 30,000 businesses and 30 million participants using our service. V3.5 meets the needs of SMB,
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`TurnSignl - Exhibit 1014
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`enterprise, and educational and healthcare insitutions alike for fexibility and mobile innovation at a
`dramatically lower cos,” Yuan says in a satement. 
`
`Traction, at three years and eight months from founding, two years and four months from launch
`December 2014, Zoom has 30,000 business cusomers globally and 30 million participants. 
`
`: In
`
`Fourth funding, at three years and 10 months from founding, two years and six months from launch : In
`February 2015, Zoom  raises $30 million in a Series C round led by  Emergence Capital, with participation from
`Horizons Ventures, Jerry Yang, Qualcomm Ventures, and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong.
`
`"Businesses aren't fully satisfed with the satus quo in video conferencing," Yuan says in a satement. "Zoom's
`cloud-based video conferencing has a richer feature set and better user experience at a much more afordable
`cos. With this funding, we can reach a broader global audience through new sales and marketing initiatives." 
`
`Traction, at three years and 10 months from founding, two years and six months from launch
`: By
`February 2015, Zoom has 65,000 companies, 40 million individuals, over 1 billion meeting minutes and 2,500
`educational insitution cusomers.
`
`
`
`— Zoom's Fifth Year —
`
`Product, at four years from founding, two years and eight months from launch: In April 2015, Zoom hoss
`a webinar called Introducing Zoom's Collaboration Suites, in which it details all of the things the service can do.
`
`"Have you ever sarted talking about something and realize that the person across from you has a blank,
`confused sare? It happens to the bes of us. Too often, those “in the know” take for granted that everyone
`knows what they know. That’s why today we want to go back to basics and discuss something you may not
`know: Zoom isn’t jus for video meetings from your laptop and mobile device. Yes, we are absolutely excellent
`at that service, but we’re so much more!" the company writes.
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`TurnSignl - Exhibit 1014
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Partnership, at four years and four months from founding, three years from launch
`: In Augus 2015,
`Zoom integrates with Slack, allowing Slack users to sart Zoom video conferencing from the Slack interface.
`
`Partnership, at four years and fve months from founding, three years and one month from launch
`September 2015, Zoom  integrates with Salesforce , giving Salesforce users access to its service within the
`sales and marketing platform.
`
`: In
`
`"Zoom is committed to making the communication and collaboration experience as seamless as possible,"
`Yuan says in a satement. "With so many Salesforce users with their own cusomers spread across
`geographies, it is critical that they have the communications tools they need to conduct and grow their
`businesses readily available in the platform they use a subsantial amount of the time."
`
`Product, at four years and six months from founding, three years and two months from launch
`October 2015, Zoom doubles the number of participants allows in a session to 50.
`
`: In
`
`"We didn't make major adjusments to our technology to double our sandard meeting capacity from 25 to 50
`participants," Yuan tells eWEEK. "We built Zoom to be scalable to the needs of our cusomers, so it was like
`fipping a switch to add this capacity."
`
`Personnel, at four years and seven months from founding, three years and three months from launch :
`In November 2015, Zoom  adds David Berman , Former President of RingCentral, as its new President, while
`Peter Gassner, Founder and CEO of Veeva, is named to Zoom's Board of Directors.
`
`"In my 15+ years in the indusry, no one has done collaboration right. Then one day, I have a meeting on this
`new technology Zoom and I'm blown away. Zoom has a world-class product and team, and tremendous
`growth. Zoom is ready to scale and I'm here to make sure we do it right," Berman says in a satement.
`
`"I am thrilled to join the Zoom team. As a devoted Zoom user, I know that it is the comprehensive solution that
`businesses have been waiting for. This market has hisorically been segmented into diferent providers for
`diferent collaboration needs; Zoom brings it all together in one versatile, simple platform. It's majorly disrupting
`the market and I'm proud to be a part of their next sage of growth," Gassner says.
`
`Expansion, at four years and 10 months from founding, three years and six months from launch
`February 2016, Zoom opens a second ofce in Denver.
`
`: In
`
`"Invesing in our people is a key initiative to our growth srategy. We chose to open our new ofce in Denver
`because we see this as one of the next hot innovation centers in the US," Yuan says. "Given its growing
`technology scene, excellent higher education and quality of life indicators, and central US location, it was the
`clear choice for our new ofce."
`
`Accolades, at four years and 11 months from founding, three years and seven months from launch : In
`March 2016,  Zoom wins  the 2016 North American Hosed Video Conferencing Services Entrepreneurial
`Company of the Year Award at the Fros & Sullivan Awards Gala
`
`— Zoom Today —
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Zoom went public on April 18, 2019, valuing the company at nearly $16 billion by the end of its IPO. It now has
`a market cap of $38.52 billion.
`
`The company added 2.22 million monthly active users in the frs two months of 2020, after adding 1.99 million
`in 2019.
`
`Steven Loeb
`
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`READ MORE FROM OUR "WHEN THEY WERE YOUNG" SERIES
`
`NOVEMBER 11, 2020
`When BetterHelp was young: the early years
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`BetterHelp and Vator have teamed up for Becoming Us, a virtual group therapy program
`
`Read more...
`
` Steven Loeb
`
`AUGUST 10, 2020
`When Ginger was young: the early years
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`Ginger sarted by selling health data to providers, before pivoting to becoming a provider itself
`
`Read more...
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` Steven Loeb
`
`MAY 26, 2020
`When Talkspace was young: the early years
`
`Talkspace was originally called Talktala, and focused on video group therapy sessions
`
`Read more...
`
` Steven Loeb
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`More episodes
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`RELATED COMPANIES, INVESTORS, AND ENTREPRENEURS
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`ZOOM.US
`Startup/Business
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`Joined Vator on March 29, 2016
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`Name of the company
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`001
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`JIM SCHEINMAN
`Joined Vator on January 28, 2013
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`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
`
`Entrepreneur, Founder, Invesor, Bebo ($850M sale),
`NBCi ($350M), Social Gold ($100M), Friendser,
`Tango, Check, Banjo. TED Speaker. Founder & CEO
`of Maven Ventures MicroVC & Growth Labs
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`RELATED NEWS
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`Image Description
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`MARCH 21, 2015
`Meet Matt Ocko, Managing Partner
`of Data Collective
`
`Image Description
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`APRIL 19, 2019
`How does Zoom make money?
`
`https://vator.tv/news/2020-03-26-when-zoom-was-young-the-early-years[10/24/2023 2:28:11 PM]
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`When Zoom was young: the early years
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