Feyzi Fatehi: A Relentless Entrepreneur and Visionary Innovator

Feyzi Fatehi

Even if you are remotely associated with all things technology and software, you would have heard about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It is a way of delivering software applications over the internet, without requiring users to install or maintain them on their own devices. Users can access the software through web browsers, mobile apps, and APIs, and pay a monthly or yearly fee for the service.

What makes it great?

SaaS offers users advantages such as lower or no upfront costs, scalability, flexibility, and accessibility.

And if you ask Feyzi Fatehi about his latest book on the subject titled ‘Democratizing SaaS’, he would tell you that it isn’t just a book, but a manifesto for a new movement in the software industry! In his book, Feyzi captures the essence of the entrepreneurial movement that would create a radical change in the way we develop, deploy, and manage software—as a Service (SaaS). A movement that opens the gateway to millions of net new good-paying jobs and the resulting economic and social good.

“No matter if you are an entrepreneur bringing a SaaS solution to market, or an intrapreneur within a corporation working on publishing one or more of your internally developed software assets ‘“as a Service,” Democratizing SaaS is a call to action for you,” he states.

As Arun Batchu, the Vice President and Software Engineering Leader Practice at Gartner says:

“The efficient, elastic, and scalable delivery of software—as a service—has been very difficult, time-consuming, costly, and complex, shutting out innovators across the world. Until now. In Democratizing SaaS, Feyzi Fatehi paints an exciting vision of a world where software innovators can focus on creating their core software applications and leave the toil of standing up, operating, and commercializing their creations to automation…”

The key takeaway from the book is how Jim Whitehurst, the former CEO of Red Hat and President of IBM summarized it: “Democratizing SaaS powerfully articulates the power of using a SaaS automation platform such as Corent’s SaaSOps for both software companies as well as for the enterprise.”

An Industry Veteran

A visionary innovator and entrepreneur, Feyzi Fatehi currently serves as the Chairman and CEO of Corent Technology and is a sought-after inspirational speaker on tech innovation, entrepreneurism, and the conscious corporate culture of intrapreneurism and leadership.

He was the recipient of the 2019 CODiE Lifetime Achievement Award, an award previously bestowed on Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Bill Gates, for his significant long-term contributions to the software industry as well as for his industry leadership, mentorship, and philanthropy. A Silicon Valley veteran, Feyzi studied at Cambridge, Princeton, UT Austin, and UCLA and has given talks at Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, CalTech, and Carnegie Mellon, as well as a commencement speech at UC Irvine in 2022. He was featured in Forbes as a disruptor in the software industry and ForbesBooks published his book mentioned above titled “Democratizing SaaS” on how Corent’s breakthrough technology is poised to transform the software industry into a service industry and create hundreds of thousands if not millions of direct and indirect  new high-paying jobs in the process.

Being Innovative and Adaptive

Innovation is at the heart of Corent Technology‘s existence and Feyzi and his team constantly look outside the box and see and connect the dots that are visible, but not seen. “We not only saw the benefits of an automated SaaS delivery platform years before it became obvious to the market but also had the wisdom and courage to pursue it years before it was even understood,” he says.

Corent started as just a few engineers who set out to create Software-Defined SaaS®. They called their creation SurPaaS, which was initially devised to automatically transform existing applications into multi-tenant SaaS. Over the years, by bringing application awareness to the Cloud, SurPaaS continues to position Corent to quickly respond to new opportunities, including continuous on-Cloud optimization, modernization, and management of infrastructure, applications, and SaaS operations.

Today, SurPaaS acquires, transforms, and deploys models of an application, from anywhere, to anywhere. Unlike other platforms that stop at the infrastructure layer, SurPaaS models the entire application, its data, its dependencies, and its lifecycle on the Cloud. It’s like ETL for applications.

As for adaptations, the company is home to industry veterans as well as Gen Z. The result is a charged atmosphere that is buzzing with new ideas verified by experience and expertise. As it has been proven a diverse environment is more conducive to fostering innovation than a homogeneous environment. Innovation is a result of diverse thoughts and disciplines as well as an inclusive work environment where everyone is a stakeholder and expected to contribute and be recognized for it. 

 “As CHARLES DARWIN said, it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. So, we adapt and celebrate the differences in styles while honoring, fostering, and respecting our core values,” shares Feyzi.

Views on Novel Technologies and the Challenges in Application

While not an expert, Feyzi believes that Metaverse will help “test marketing” messages and strategies before bringing them to the real world. That said, he asserts who knows what the ‘real’ world will be like in the future as he can see scenarios it will be the other way around.

As for AI – whether you interpret it as Artificial Intelligence or augmented intelligence – is a form of robotic automation. Like the introduction of any other form of automation into the market, it will have its own socio-economic impact. Like in the past, others will accelerate the introduction of their own versions and variations, like now many auto manufacturers are introducing their own electric vehicles after the first mover success of Tesla.  

As for emerging technology, one of the first challenges in facilitating them is getting the initial customer adoption with a handful of “early adaptors” that use the new technology in operations and therefore give it real-world credibility, through case studies and announcements. The second, says Feyzi, is the awareness building for the new technology and brand recognition or co-branding with a complementary and trusted brand. Given the right sales and channels of distribution, the rest would be the classic new product introduction process.

Plans for the Future

Team Corent is readying itself to offer a lot to the market in the next few years. They are determined to pursue their mission of positively disrupting the B2B software industry and transform it into a service industry, in a mostly automated fashion, powered by the best of AI technologies.

“And as a result, generate a significant sustainable social economic impact, by empowering a new generation of SaaS entrepreneurs and hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs created because of it, and hence “democratizing SaaS,” concludes Feyzi.

Quote 1: “There is no traffic jam on the extra mile.”

Quote 2: “If I could change one thing about my career, I would have started to work on my communication skills earlier and would have focused on having active mentors and career coaches at an earlier stage.”

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