An Interview With Thomas Savundra, President Of Sync.com

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Below is our recent interview with Thomas Savundra, President of Sync.com:

Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?

Thomas Savundra: Sync is Canada’s largest cloud storage and document collaboration provider, and a world-leader in cloud content management. Our mission is to make secure file storage, sharing, and collaboration easy for everyone, by providing a safe space for the world to collaborate.

Q: What are some highlights of your recent announcement?

Thomas Savundra: We just surpassed 2.2 million active users.

Q: What can we expect from your company in the near future? What are your plans?

Thomas Savundra: Our rapid growth is a result of teams choosing Sync to get their best work done. From content creators to educators to healthcare providers to large-scale enterprises, Sync helps teams stay connected through all phases of any project.

This year our team is putting the plus in our Teams+ plans with a host of new admin features designed to help organizations of any size collaborate securely from anywhere, while meeting industry standard security certification and data privacy compliance.

Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?

Thomas Savundra: We have a truly amazing in-house customer service team ready to help you. We’re 100% Canadian, and all file data is stored in Canada.

Q: What makes the Sync.com storage solution unique, both in terms of technology and its market positioning?

Thomas Savundra: Sync is unique because we offer best-in-class file-sync, backup, and sharing at a fraction of the cost compared to the likes of Dropbox, Box.com, and Google. All with a much better track record of data privacy protection, and in-house customer service.

Q: You have said that you are “on a mission to get the world in Sync.” What do you mean by that?

Thomas Savundra: We’re all at our best and most productive when our goals and values are in sync — when our lives are in sync — when our worlds are in sync. It’s that aha moment that helps us level up and grow. Sync connects people, documents, computers, and devices together seamlessly, so everyone is always up-to-date and on the same page, working better together across the office or across the globe.

Q: When did you first come up with the idea of creating Sync?

Thomas Savundra: We started Sync eleven years ago with the goal of creating a secure cloud storage platform designed to protect user privacy. Back in 2011 we were looking for a secure, private cloud storage space, but none really existed. There were always tradeoffs, in that you were never sure who had access to your data stored in the cloud. We wanted to change all that.

The Sync idea and concept wouldn’t have been possible without co-founders that I’ve had the great privilege of working with. Suhan Shan, Darius Antia and I had teamed up during the early Internet years to build Netfirms, a startup which quickly grew into a leading domain name and website hosting service provider. Our passion, experience and long-term mindset gave us the confidence to build Sync.

Q: What was the startup phase like? What were your obstacles?

Thomas Savundra: We were moving so quickly early on it felt like a race against time. When you have a great idea, you want the entire world to know about it as soon as possible. But realistically it takes time before your product is ready for the world to see. That’s what “beta labels” are for. You need to get out there early because the feedback is invaluable!

Q: What goals did you set for the company in the beginning, and how have those changed?

Thomas Savundra: Our main goal back then was to develop an extremely secure and private cloud storage solution. But it was only after we launched that we saw Sync’s full potential: that we could help virtually anyone, including businesses and teams, collaborate and work effectively in the cloud. Today we’re focused on building more collaboration and productivity features for teams, that help keep customer data safe and provide amazing value.

Q: What are some of the main obstacles you’ve had to overcome in creating Sync?

Thomas Savundra: Scaling our innovative and customer-centric people team has been a challenge. Our employee count has tripled in size in just a few years, and we went from working primarily from the office to working from home. But just like everything in life, you have to adapt.

Our team is stronger and better than ever, and super-resilient, because we’ve learned to work effectively from anywhere. That’s what Sync is all about after all!

Q: What are the most popular features Sync offers?

Thomas Savundra: Desktop syncing with CloudFiles files-on-demand and unlimited storage space is an unbeatable combo for teams working on collaborative projects.

Sync gives everyone on a team access to the most updated project files in real-time, and those files don’t take up space on their computers or devices. The ease and simplicity of getting your entire team in sync with Sync is an incredible feeling.

Q: What new features are you working on?

Thomas Savundra: We are working on a host of new admin features designed to help organizations of any size collaborate securely from anywhere, while meeting industry standard security certification and data privacy compliance: role-based access controls for IT, multiple-administrators for larger teams, and easier user provisioning to name a few.

Q: When it comes to recruiting and managing a winning team you’ve said this: “Go have honest conversations with your team. Be open. Question everything. Game changing growth ideas are right there.” Can you elaborate on that?

Thomas Savundra: We look for great people who align with our core values. Our values of humanity, growth, ownership, and commitment provide the lens that guides us, and empowers our team to innovate, disrupt, and grow.

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