Startups

Side hustle alert: Why Cloudistics CEO Najaf Husain drives race cars

It's more like running a company than you'd think, he says.

Najaf Husain out on the track. (Courtesy photo)

Najaf Husain, CEO of Reston-based Cloudistics, has always been into race cars. So when he sold his last company AppAssure Software to Dell in 2012, he decided to buy one.

And so, as he built Cloudistics (founded in 2013), Husain also built up a passion as a semi-pro race car driver. The two are more similar than you’d think.

“It constantly puts you in an uncomfortable position,” Husain said, of racing. And for him that’s just like running a company — if you’re not uncomfortable you’re not growing. Husain told Technical.ly that many of the guys he races with in the IMSA Prototype Challenge series are business owners. This is at least partially because owning a race car is expensive, but it also, one imagines, has something to do with the unique thrills of both these challenges.

For Cloudistics, the challenge is finding a new alternative to traditional computing infrastructure. “Traditional infrastructure is dead,” Husain told Technical.ly. That’s why so many businesses are moving to use the public cloud. And the cloud is a great option for some things, but not everything.

Husain, who’s very fond of analogies, compared the public cloud to a public swimming pool. An awesome resource, but there are probably some things you don’t want to put in there. That’s where Cloudistics comes in — bringing the power of the cloud back to on-premise.

Cloudistics is nascent, but going places. It was recently named to CNBC’s “Upstart 25” list and no wonder — since acquiring its first customer in October the company now has seven customers and is bringing in revenue. The company has a team of around 60 based in Reston and is “growing nicely,” Husain said.

We’re sure there’s a race analogy in there somewhere.

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

Our services Preferred partners The journalism fund
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

How one-click job listings overtook the process — and slowed down tech hiring

Every startup community wants ‘storytelling.’ Too few are doing anything about it.

Tech lobbyist warns US not to ‘cut off’ innovation in new book

This Week in Jobs: A wealth of opportunity in these 24 open tech roles

Technically Media