Hari Ravichandran’s Journey From Stanford To Serial Unicorn Founder

Becoming a successful entrepreneur is a rarity, no matter what the great American myths would have you believe. Even rarer is the entrepreneur who finds a way to adapt and overcome overwhelming situational odds to succeed. That’s exactly what Hari Ravichandran did, however. And he didn’t stop there. Today, he’s the founder and CEO of Aura, an intelligent safety solution, protecting everything families do online. It was an idea born from his own personal experience. And it’s also Ravichandran’s second startup to reach unicorn status—with both of his businesses having crossed the billion-dollar valuation threshold. Here’s a bit about Ravichandran’s journey from Stanford to serial unicorn founder.

From Stanford to Early Web Pioneer

Hari Ravichandran’s entrepreneurial journey began much like that of many entrepreneurs of his generation—by dropping out of college. The year was 1997, and Ravichandran had traded a chance at a Stamford degree for the opportunity to work for Sun Microsystems, one of the tech titans of the era. Before long, he caught the early internet bug, investing two-thirds of his savings to advertise his services as a web developer for small businesses looking to capitalize on the growing popularity of the World Wide Web.

Before long, his ads turned into a thriving small business web hosting and design firm called BizLand. It was one of the earliest of such businesses and Ravichandran had launched it at the perfect moment in time. It was the beginning of the Dot-com bubble, after all, and every business was tripping over itself to get online. That fed BizLand’s growth, and it ended up boasting over a million ad-supported business websites on its platform by 2001. Then, everything changed.

As the stock market dominoes started to fall in the tech sector, the advertising revenue that made BizLand a web hosting juggernaut dried up. Says Ravichandran, “[As the Dot-com bubble burst], advertisers started backing off, and our revenue dropped dramatically”. To stanch the financial bleeding, Ravichandran made the bold decision to convert BizLand to a subscription service, informing customers they’d have to pay to continue using the platform. “We ended up converting about 2 percent of our customers to the subscription model,” says Ravichandran, which enabled BizLand to break even the following year.

The Birth of Endurance International Group

Having survived the economic calamity that claimed so many other firms in the early aughts, BizLand changed its name to Endurance International Group (EIG)—a name befitting its successful battle to survive. From there, Ravichandran engineered a buying spree of other web hosting firms that had also weathered the recent economic storm. Before long, EIG was one of the largest business-oriented web-hosting firms in the world. By 2011, having more than rebuilt its pre-bubble customer base, EIG attracted the attention of Warburg Pincus and GS Capital Partners, who bought a majority stake in the company for a staggering $975 million.

New Inspiration and New Beginnings

Having turned EIG into a billion-dollar business, Ravichandran could have taken his payout and retired with permanent financial security. Unfortunately, he would soon learn that the internet now meant that nobody—not even experienced tech entrepreneurs—was ever secure. He learned that lesson when, in 2014, he applied for a mortgage. His application was denied outright.

It turned out that Ravichandran had been victimized by an identity thief who had trashed his credit. It was then that he learned that the road back from identity theft was a long one, fraught with challenges that even he, with ample resources, struggled to overcome. It was then that the idea for Aura, his current business, came to him.

The Tools to Fight Cybercriminals

Aura is a consumer-focused cybersecurity app and platform that helps its customers defend their personal data online. It leverages cutting-edge AI to offer early warnings about potential fraud and identity theft. Plus, it offers useful security tools like a VPN, secure password vault, antivirus protection, and spam call blocking. Together, Ravichandran hopes that Aura’s customers won’t have to go through what he did. And, if a customer suffers a security incident anyway, they’ll have $1 million in insurance coverage to cover their losses.

Of Aura’s overarching mission, Ravichandran says, “Our mission became to create a safer internet.” He adds, “I’m a dad. I’ve got three kids, and I’m seeing them grow up as digital natives. I want to make sure that they have some security around the devices that they use and that they’ve been born into.” And that mission, so far, is a success. At the time of this writing, Aura’s market value is somewhere around $2.5 billion, and it boasts an all-star list of investors and team-members, ranging from Jeffrey Katzenberg to Robert Downey, Jr.

But Ravichandran isn’t showing any signs of slowing down yet. Having successfully grown two startups to unicorn status and beyond, he’s still hard at work. As CEO of Aura, he continues to chart the company’s course. And he’s still got the same drive to create as he did in his early years. So, one way or another, it’s a safe bet that this won’t be the final chapter in Ravichandran’s entrepreneurial journey. In fact, it may be just a prelude to even greater success to come.

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