Engineering Leadership Series - David (DC) Caccavella
Today we have a great guest in the Engineering Leadership Interview Series. David (DC) Caccavella, the Co-Founder and CTO from MindCloud, joins us to discuss his entrepreneurial journey, how he and his co-founders identified a gap in the market, and how he enables his team to be creative and do their best work.
DC's interest in engineering began at the young age of 10. By 17, he had parlayed that into a paid software development role. David has gone on to co-found and lead the technical efforts at MindCloud. They closed 2024 with $2MM ARR.
Enjoy the interview and give DC and MindCloud a follow.
Biography
More Information
David's LinkedIn
David's Twitter
David's GitHub
MindCloud
The Interview
DoneStreet
Tell us your story, how did you discover your interest in software engineering?
DC
When I was 10 I built an unpublished website for an online game I was invested in, while also playing with mods to change the gameplay. At 17 I worked adjacent to but not in software for a company. Seeing software development being done deeply interested me and I managed to make myself valuable enough to switch into this role within a few weeks. The next 13 years were a blend of software engineering and traveling the world installing server and network infrastructure.
DoneStreet
You co-founded MindCloud in June 2021. How did you and your co-founder Jamie come up with the idea and get started?
DC
Jamie and I worked at different companies, however had known each other for a while and both expressed interested in starting something together. After exploring a few options that we decided did not have much potential, Jamie met someone through his other job that happened to need a lot of e-commerce integrations. We agreed to build these on nights & weekends and split it 50/50. This then led to other related contacts needing the same thing, and it grew organically. Eventually we realized how big the market for this was and Jamie went full time.
DoneStreet
MindCloud is a software integration company that specializes in connecting various platforms and automating business processes. Your services help businesses streamline data synchronization, eliminate manual tasks, and enhance operational efficiency by creating seamless connections between different software applications. What problem are you solving that the market was missing?
DC
The market has had very little high-touch, full service integrations that are more than just agencies using someone else's stack. We're unique in that we hand-coded these integrations up to over 100 clients and in parallel used what we learned to build a platform around that. This has given us very good abstractions that other platforms haven't done, because they started with an idea, not demand.
DoneStreet
What is your team building that you are most excited about? Are there any unique and interesting technical challenges?
DC
Our integration platform has now reached a maturity where people can self-service and build powerful integrations themselves. We've been in a private beta with a public release coming soon.
I'm very excited to polish what we have and use our good abstractions to come out with a platform that is simply so much better than what's out there. There are many new verticals and stepping stones ahead.
DoneStreet
If I’m not mistaken (and please feel free to correct me), you’ve raised $1.5 million over 2 rounds and grown to a $1MM+ ARR number. How have you managed such rapid growth and why do your customers love working with you?
DC
The funding is correct, and we ended last year at $2MM ARR. Jamie and Sam, my co-founders, are incredible at selling the product and I'm fortunate to have the experience to build something good. This has worked well together, and the rest boils down to great customer service.
DoneStreet
How do you approach leadership and what makes someone a good engineering leader? Are there certain things you try to do and certain things you try to avoid
DC
Good hiring is incredibly important, and once you have good people it's a matter of giving them the freedom and bandwidth to be creative and do their best work. While I hold hard lines, I always try listen to every employee's opinion and advice. I want them to be better than me.
DoneStreet
How do you typically hire talented engineers and how do you approach building a strong team?
DC
It's just a matter of being thorough. I've done over 200 interviews myself since we started. I can't underestimate the importance of communication and duplication, these come first in hiring interviews.
DoneStreet
What do you think are the secrets to being successful and what advice would you give to your younger self?
DC
The obvious ones, persistence and hard work. Perhaps the less obvious one is being a realist - you need to see what's in front of you, listen to what users say and act on it.
DoneStreet
If you had a bounty of 5 million dollars, what product or service would you want built?
DC
I would just accelerate what are are already doing.
DoneStreet
Where can we send people to follow your work and updates?
DC
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