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

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. >>>

Video FAQs

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!

428th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting In 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 428th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, 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!

Smartsheet Acquiring Bootstrapped Startups to Drive Growth

According to a MarketsandMarkets research report, the global Enterprise Collaboration Software market is expected to grow from $34.6 billion in 2018 to $59.9 billion by 2023, translating to an annualized growth rate of nearly 12% over the five year period. Billion Dollar Unicorn Smartsheet (NASDAQ: SMAR) recently announced its second acquisition in a bid to keep itself ahead of the pack in this high growth market.

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From Zero to a Market Cap Bigger than General Motors: Keith Krach, Founder of Ariba (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You started navigating the venture capital industry in Silicon Valley?

Keith Krach: Yes, that was my introduction. We had five venture capitalists. It got to a point where we were running out of money.

Sramana Mitra: Who were these people? This is 1989. This is a very immature industry from a venture capital point of view. Who were the guys who were willing to work with you? >>>

1Mby1M Incubation Radar 2019: Bakkbenchers, Mumbai, India

With improved bandwidth, proliferation of smart phones, and the increasing ubiquity of super-fast Internet connections across India, patterns for online content consumption have been changing. Maker of the viral hit series Chutzpah Trailers, Bakkbenchers Entertainment is a digital entertainment company that caters to these changing trends in online video content in India. >>>