Today’s roundtable had several entrepreneurs with promising businesses, including some already in revenue.
Localvore
First, Cameron Kramlich from San Francisco, California, pitched Localvore, a concept for local artisans to be able to sell their merchandise to consumers who want to shop local. We discussed models for inventory (buying versus consignment), target segments (local versus tourists; the latter, in my opinion is unnecessary), logistics, etc.
socioMD
Next, Rahul Sarasani from Hyderabad, India, pitched socioMD, a professional network for doctors to share information, discuss cases, etc. It is not clear to me whether doctors would, indeed, participate in such a network in India. For one thing, they are not the most tech savvy bunch, and definitely not early adopters of technology. This raises the question, how large is this opportunity?
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In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here.
Sramana Mitra: And what scale operations are these?
Harley Lippman: It will vary at the time of the work. It could be anywhere from a few hundred to about 1,000 people.
SM: So you are one of the companies doing this. How big is the onshore outsourcing market for IT services right now? >>>
Today’s 174th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable for entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, May 16, at 8:00 a.m. PDT/11:00 a.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. India IST. Click here to join.
Today’s 174th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable for entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, May 16, at 8:00 a.m. PDT/11:00 a.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. India IST. Click here to join. All are welcome!
The latest Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast projects worldwide IT spending to grow 4.1% over the year to $3.8 trillion during the current year. These projections are a marginal improvement over the projections a quarter ago, when Gartner estimated IT spending to grow to $3.7 trillion this year. IT spending is projected to grow another 4% next year to $3.9 trillion.
Chris Cabrera is the founder and CEO of Xactly, a leading incentive compensation management software suite for companies of any size. He has more than two decades of successful senior management experience at both early-stage and public companies and has managed sales, marketing, operations and business development. He is also the co-author of “Xactly Sales Compensation for Dummies.” Prior to founding Xactly Corporation, Cabrera was the senior vice president of operations for Callidus Software. Before joining Callidus Software, he ran North American channel sales at Silicon Graphics. Cabrera earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration with an emphasis in entrepreneurship from the University of Southern California, and a master’s degree in business administration from Santa Clara University.
Sramana: Chris, let’s get started by reviewing your background. Where do you come from? What are the roots of your entrepreneurial journey?
Chris Cabrera: I grew up as one of five kids. Originally I was brought up in Boston, although my family moved a lot. I moved to Northern California for high school. My father was a serial entrepreneur at a time when being an entrepreneur meant you were a bootstrapped entrepreneur. My household was very entrepreneurial. I worked with my dad every summer in his office. >>>
Sramana Mitra: The trend of what has become to be known as “near shoring” is definitely something we have been hearing about for a while now – three or four years at least. I imagine the trend has matured this year, and I am looking forward to discussing that with you. We have seen that a lot of the near shoring trend in U.S. companies outsourcing to Latin America, Central America, and some others. One of our interviewees called it “Third World United States.” Then we have seen Europe outsourcing to Eastern Europe, Africa, etc. So, we have seen this near shoring trend in various interviews. You are specifically working on within the U.S., is that correct? >>>