Bootstrapping to an Exit

Over the last decade and more, I’ve had the privilege of working with a large number of bootstrapped entrepreneurs. These include self-financed companies and also modestly capitalized startups that operate in a capital-efficient manner applying the principles of bootstrapping. [You can review my Bootstrapping course on LinkedIn to review these.]

For our Seed Capital series of podcasts and blog interviews, I’ve interviewed hundreds of investors, especially micro-VCs and angels who are playing in the early stage game.

I’ve asked all of them the following questions:

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Featured Videos

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Raj Agarwal, CEO of Medocity (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s switch the discussion to pharmaceuticals and where drugs are now being enhanced by various kinds of digital monitoring or reporting. What are the trends there? It seems like you have penetration in that use case as well.

Raj Agarwal: One big trend on the pharma side is that they are recognizing that they need to be connected to the patient in terms of providing more support digitally. That’s one big trend where we talked about patient support programs. We see more and more companies going for that. Digital therapeutics is a different animal. >>>

428th Roundtable Recording on January 16, 2019: With Ondrej Bartos, Credo Ventures

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here:

Video FAQs

What Capital-Efficient Startup Should Okta Acquire Next?

According to a Grand View Research report published last year, the global identity and access management (IAM) market is estimated to grow 13% annually to $22.7 billion by the year 2025. The growth is expected to be driven by the rising adoption of cloud services and mobile devices and the continued need to drive compliance to manage insider threat. Billion Dollar Unicorn Okta (NASDAQ: OKTA) reported its third quarter results last month that surpassed market expectations.

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From Zero to a Market Cap Bigger than General Motors: Keith Krach, Founder of Ariba (Part 4)

Keith Krach: Benchmark fund number one ended up being the best-performing fund in history. We started it. We were going to an offsite. I said, “Paul, can you do a prototype?” He said, “I can’t do a prototype until we talk to a customer first.” I said, “How many do you think we should talk to?” He goes, “I don’t about. About 50.” I go, “What kind of questions should we ask?” He said, “You’re the CEO. You figure it out.”

We went in and talked to customers. We just asked them two things. How are you doing it now? It was a mess. It’s a paper-based process. Then, what would be ideal? You could parametrically change the business rules. Maybe even use internet to hook up with suppliers. I go, “That’s what we’re doing.” >>>

Roundtable Recap: January 16 – Spotlight on Entrepreneurship in Central Europe

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Ondrej Bartos, General Partner at Credo Ventures based in Prague, focused on investing in Central European startups. Their major success story is UiPath in robotics process automation that has raised $265 million at a $3 billion valuation. UiPath has over 2,100 customers and claims to have annual revenues of $150 million. We discuss the Romanian company in some detail.

WellWrap
As for the pitches, first up, we had Abi Kariguiddaiah, a 1Mby1M Premium member from Danville, California, pitch WellWrap.

SharesInside
Next, we had Dave Hannam from Zurich, Switzerland, pitch SharesInside, a company that is currently at a $1M ARR level.

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Concept Financing for a Fat Startup: Tomer Shiran, CEO of Dremio (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: So 2018, what kind of customer level did you finish at? Beside the regular stuff of getting your sales organization ramped up, was there any other strategic thing that you did that is worth a discussion?

Tomer Shiran: When we launched, we had both a free version of the product and an enterprise edition. The community edition is something that people can start using for free, but it doesn’t have the features that an enterprise would need. In our first few quarters, a lot of our focus was on building awareness and getting people to download our community edition and start doing things on their own. >>>

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Raj Agarwal, CEO of Medocity (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let me paraphrase my question and see if you can answer them from a trend point of view. On the value-based care side, whether it’s hospitals or physicians, what trends are you seeing in terms of adoption? How aggressive is the adoption of technologies such as yours?

Raj Agarwal: Frankly, it’s the slowest sector of the three. The decision-making takes anywhere from a year to a year and a half, even longer in some cases. The adoption is increasing, especially in tele-health. The next phase is the remote monitoring and condition management. The biggest receptivity is from organizations that are part of the value-based care or in a shared-risk arrangement.

Sramana Mitra: You just said that that is the slowest adopting sector.

Raj Agarwal: These three sectors are different. >>>

428th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 428th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Wednesday, January 16, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST. Click here to join. All are welcome!