EP1: Michael Tessler - From Two-Person Startup to $1.9B Cloud Communications Empire

Join host Rob Scott for an extraordinary conversation with Michael Tessler, the visionary co-founder and former CEO of BroadSoft who literally created the Unified Communications-as-a-Service industry. In 1998, while others focused on hardware, Michael saw the future: enterprise communications would shift to software delivered over the internet.Discover how he and co-founder Scott Hoffpauir grew BroadSoft from humble beginnings into a global powerhouse serving 50 million users across 80 countries, pioneering the revolutionary partner-centric model that worked with telecom carriers rather than against them. Michael shares the pivotal decisions, hidden challenges, and strategic insights that led to BroadSoft's $1.9 billion acquisition by Cisco in 2018.From his engineering roots at Nortel to scaling a 2,000-person global team, Michael reveals the execution principles and leadership philosophy that built an industry. Now as Managing Partner at True North Advisory, he's mentoring the next generation of tech entrepreneurs with hard-won wisdom about partnerships, culture, and knowing when to make the leap.This is the untold story of how one engineer's vision transformed how the world communicates - and the human journey behind building a category-defining company.