“Take the risk and start your business.”
Born in a rural town in Upstate NY, Sinclair Schuller went from working on cow and quail farms, to being the CEO and Cofounder of one of UNY’s most disruptive software companies.
After graduating from RPI with degrees in math and computer science, Sinclair started working for Morgan Stanley alongside thousands of software developers. Having those kind of resources should have resulted in lighting fast creation of software, but what he realized was larger companies lack developer productivity. He and his partners set out to solve this problem by creating a cloud technology platform that allows companies to build software quickly. With software now driving every industry and producing the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution, Apprenda’s solution allows large companies to stay competitive and grow substantially. This includes clients such as JP Morgan, which runs over 2000 applications on Apprenda’s platform.
So why stay in Upstate NY? Sinclair considers himself, “Pro-Upstate,” saying we cannot replicate the business model of Silicon Valley because circumstances focused on investing are different from the characteristics we have in our region. He believes acknowledging what we have is the key. And one of our advantages is Upstate’s close proximity to the world’s largest banks, pharma and media companies based in NYC. Had he started Apprenda in Silicon Valley, he wouldn’t have had immediate access to his founding clients.
Now committed to paying it forward, Sinclair is very active in Upstate’s startup ecosystem. As a member of the UNY50 Leadership Network, he is raising his hand to help new founders succeed. His best advice to next generation entrepreneurs is, “Take the risk and start your business.”
To date, Apprenda has raised over $55 million in venture capital, and employs 125+ people with offices in Troy, N.Y., Manhattan and Europe. As Apprenda continues to grow, they are always searching for new talent to join their team.
Sinclair was one of our featured speakers at the 2016 Upstate Unleashed Conference. In case you missed it, watch his presentation here.
