Aaron, Brian and Amy Lewis talk with Srinivas Krishnamurti (@skrishna09; Founder/CEO of Zugata) about the VMware Mafia, being an EIR, the Zugata vision to make work-life better for individuals, the psychology of improving teamwork and the differences between building commercial software and SaaS services.

Topic 1 - You’re an alumni of the infamous VMware Mafia. Tell us about your background and why you decided to start Zugata. Also, let’s talk a little about the service.

Topic 2 - You obviously had a premise about how this might change the work environment, but what have you learned from early adopters of the service?

Topic 3 - How do you overcome that many people’s initial reaction to a tool like this is “privacy!, social engineering!, big brother! bullying!”

Topic 4 - Let’s talk about building a SaaS service and mobile experience. Your background is in package software. What are the biggest differences from a development perspective?

Topic 5 - Help us understand the basics of SaaS economics? Lots of services start for free, then attempt to convert to a freemium or fully-paid model. What are the milestones for new SaaS companies to consider?

Topic 6 - As a SaaS service, you not only need to think about customers, but also your underlying cloud platform. What’s the landscape from the cloud providers for SaaS companies (advantages, disadvantages, etc)?