Scott Banister on venture investing
From "Date Night" with Cyan Banister (Investor) and Scott Banister (Founder of IronPort) · · ZFellows
“We've had really bad luck investing outside of software — software is a magical business with fixed cost and low marginal costs; every time we try to do something outside software it invariably hasn't been one of our top successes, SpaceX being the outlier.”
On , Scott Banister, Co-founder of IronPort at IronPort Systems, spoke about venture investing during "Date Night" with Cyan Banister (Investor) and Scott Banister (Founder of IronPort) on ZFellows.
About Scott Banister
Scott Banister, co-founder of IronPort, appeared alongside his wife Cyan Banister at a Z Fellows Startup Workshop event in October 2023. During the discussion, Banister recounted his early career, stating that he studied computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, started companies while a student, and left college early after merging a surviving venture before moving to Palo Alto. He described capitalism as having "lifted me up out of poverty" and said that after IronPort was sold to Cisco, he shifted his focus to angel investing. Banister offered several observations on investing and entrepreneurship. He said that he and his wife follow a "set it and forget it" philosophy with their investments, becoming involved without micromanaging. He noted that they have had poor results investing outside of software, calling software a "magical business" with fixed costs and low marginal costs, and cited SpaceX as an outlier. Regarding artificial intelligence, Banister remarked that it has made "everyone in the world uncomfortable" and may be "more disruptive than the printing press," but added that software industry opportunities will persist regardless of new technological innovations. He advised entrepreneurs to pursue B2B enterprise software and to interview 100 potential customers to understand their needs.