Every Great Company Almost Dies 10 Times: Okta Founder Frederic Kerrest on Building Something That Lasts

Frederic Kerrest co-founded Okta in 2009 as a two-person startup and took it public eight years later. Today, Okta is a $3B+ identity security leader used by about 20,000 enterprises, and Fred still serves as its vice chairman.

Before Okta, he learned what hypergrowth looks like at Salesforce, where he joined as an early employee and helped scale the company through its IPO. Since taking Okta public, he has written Zero to IPO, a Wall Street Journal bestseller for the next generation of founders, and invested in nearly 200 startups.

For our latest Cogent Founder Academy session, Fred sat down with our CEO, Vineet Edupuganti, and the team to talk about the hard parts of building a company and why the best companies are built by people who act like owners.

Responses have been condensed and edited for clarity.

Every successful company has almost died 10 times

Vineet Edupuganti: Looking back, what did Okta's early days really look like?

Frederic Kerrest: Success is always written in hindsight. Every successful company out there has almost died 10 times, but most don't talk about it. Okta was no different; in 2011, we missed our sales number by 70% on the day we were trying to close our Series B.

That was just one of many bumps in the road. We had to figure out product-market fit, timing, the team, the go-to-market motion, the platform, and pricing and packaging. There are a lot of moving pieces.

Vineet Edupuganti: And what about for you personally? What was the hardest stretch?

Frederic Kerrest: That same stretch in 2011. Things weren't going well, and I had some very energetic conversations with my investors about the direction of the company. I even got thrown out of two board meetings in a row. We ended up closing that Series B by the skin of our teeth. It's never a smooth path, but that's part of the journey, and it's what makes it special.

It's not the CEO's company. It's yours.

Vineet Edupuganti: How do those hard moments shape a company?

Frederic Kerrest: Every company has good times and hard times. How the team responds to both is what builds the culture.

That culture isn't set by the CEO. Every new hire walks in and looks around to figure out how things work. They're not watching the CEO; they're watching the people next to them. Within a few months, even the newest person on the team is the one someone else is learning from.

Culture is how people behave when no one is looking, so everyone owns it. That's a little intimidating, but it's also empowering.

Nobody is in charge of your career but you

Vineet Edupuganti: What would you say was foundational to Okta's success?

Frederic Kerrest: First, it's the people: hiring, developing and keeping great ones. Then it's building a culture people are excited to show up to, and a vision big enough that they're excited about the problems they're solving.

But vision isn't just a company-level thing. You need your own, too, because your CEO isn't in charge of your career, and neither is your manager. You are.

That's why everyone should have a written 3-year plan built around three questions: Vision (where are you going?), Methods (how will you get there?) and Targets (how will you know you got there?).

Then share it with your manager: where you want to go and what skills you need to get there, even if the plan is to start your own company in a few years.

I still do this myself. I write my plan down, date it, and revisit it every six months to see what's changed.

Cogent Founder Academy is our series of conversations with founders and operators who've built enduring companies. We're hiring people who want to own their careers the way Fred describes. See open roles at Cogent.