Founder of the Week: Tibi Popp

• Archive360, co-founded by Tibi Popp, helps organisations take full control of their archived data by managing it within their own cloud environments, enabling secure, governed access for analytics and AI.
• Inspired by the inefficiencies of legacy data storage, Popp and his team flipped the traditional archive model, creating tools that turn static data into a trusted, usable business asset.
• Scaling while protecting team wellbeing has been a key challenge; Popp emphasises leadership that balances innovation speed with rest, reflection and family time to prevent burnout.
• Bootstrapped and profitable, Archive360 has grown independently, focusing on empowering customers and now pioneering platforms that make archived data usable for the AI era.

 

 

 

Tell Me About Yourself and Archive360

 

I’ve always been drawn to solving technical problems – especially around data. I launched and sold my first company, a real estate SaaS platform, while I was still in college. After that, I got involved in the financial services industry, building and selling long-term data management solutions for Wall Street, where the stakes are high and mistakes are expensive. That really built up my career and gave me the experience of working with data in heavily regulated markets.

 

 

A turning point was around 2011 when the market started to shift towards the Cloud – that changed everything. My partner and I started to develop archiving solutions in the public cloud- that was the beginning of Archive360.

We build tools that help organisations take control of their archived data – not just store it, but actually do something with it. Our platform runs inside the customer’s own cloud, using their security and their rules. That way, they can feed analytics and AI with trusted, governed data – without giving up control. It’s about making sure data is an asset, not a liability.

 

What Inspired You To Start Archive360? What Problem Were You Trying To Solve?

 

Fifteen years ago, data storage was treated a bit like a graveyard – data went in, but never came out. It was slow, clunky and completely disconnected. Businesses had archives but in all kinds of disparate systems.

We started to build connecters – a way to pull data out and place it in the cloud. Back then the public code was not fully mature, so we started trying and testing our ideas. As the cloud matured, we were able to build a successful archive in the public cloud and in 2017 launched our test browser.

We basically flipped the model. Instead of locking data into someone else’s SaaS, we gave organisations the tools to manage it themselves – inside their own cloud, with their own policies. The idea was simple: if they could trust the data, they could use it. For compliance, yes – but also to drive decisions, feed models and ask smarter questions.

 

 

What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far? How Did You Overcome It?

 

Scaling the company rapidly while leveraging each team member’s individual brilliance has been and remains a real challenge. As a leader you have to multitask and wear so many different hats. I surround myself with bright, motivated people but when you’re growing quickly, there’s always pressure to move fast, ship more, say yes to everything. Every new customer brings new requirements, and the team wants to build it all – new features, integrations, use cases – fast.

The challenge is knowing when to pause, to pull the team back and prevent burnout. Nothing hurts more than failure, and nothing is greater than success, but the moment individuals achieve success – guess what – next time they will push even harder!

I have colleagues who would work non-stop and at the weekends, so I have to encourage them to slow down, perhaps extend deadlines or give lengthier tasks so they ease their foot off the accelerator. Family is also important; encouraging them to reconnect with family, take a spa break get some real downtime can help people reset.

 

Can You Describe A Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of Archive360?

 

In 2017, after years of building and iterating, we launched our platform – this was our inflection point. We were bootstrapped, customer-driven and heads down for five years. That moment validated everything we believed: archiving isn’t about locking data away; it’s about unlocking its potential.

We started getting serious traction in regulated industries like finance and government. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about building storage for retention or compliance, we were building a strategic data layer, and the market was ready for it. People were asking how to activate this data – to use it, govern it, even train AI on it. The launch opened the door to Archive360 as it is today: a platform that helps organisations realise the value of their governed data asset for the AI era.

 

How Do You Define Success? 

 

For Your Business: For the business, simply put, success is when you have something that customers want, and you have more demand than you have supply. I mean, when people purchasing your product, and the revenue is flowing in that’s great. Money (sometimes) fixes everything. You can take care of your employees – you can take care of everybody, and you can have an extremely good working environment, because you don’t have that pressure and unfortunately, businesses are built around profit and around sales.

As A Founder: Success to me is about maintaining pragmatism. I like to see something that we built and know that the customer likes it. I don’t necessarily want to make money with it. Yes, it would be nice, but first of all, I want to know that what we build, or what I architect or envision, is something that the market resonates with.

What Advice Would You Give To Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?

 

Make sure you’re all in, because it will take everything. Startups don’t clock off at 5pm. So have a strong support system around you. Also, surround yourself with a leadership team of brilliant people you implicitly trust. – and who trust you back. And don’t try to be a hero, you can’t build anything meaningful alone. Finally, focus on making others around you successful. If your team wins, you win.

 

What’s Next For Archive360? Any Exciting Developments We Should Watch Out For?

 

We’ve just created the first archive platform that gives organisations full control over how their archived data is used for AI and analytics – not just storing it, but curating it, governing it, and making it usable. That’s a big shift. Most tools weren’t built for that kind of flexibility or security.

What’s exciting is we did it our way – no outside funding. Archive360 was bootstrapped from day one, grown through profit, focus and listening to customers. That’s rare in tech, and that independence means we get to build with clarity and stay close to the people we’re building for.

 

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