Bootstrapping a $10M Creative Marketplace: Envato Founder Couple Collis and Cyan Ta’eed (Part 5)

Sramana: I have talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who are running exchange marketplace businesses. What you are describing is a phenomenon where people make a living from far away places and I think that aspect of these marketplace business is fantastic. Collis Ta’eed: It is spectacular. I think it is about the Internet empowering

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Catching Up On Readings: New Philosophies On Internet Security

A recent Wired article by Mat Honan argues that protecting accounts with robust passwords is no longer a viable strategy to Internet security. Honan’s article comes in response to a New York Times piece on protecting yourself against hackers. With data and identity theft increasingly common, it’s a welcome debate. How can individuals best protect

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Bootstrapping a $10M Creative Marketplace: Envato Founder Couple Collis and Cyan Ta’eed (Part 4)

Sramana: The way you have grown this business is very interesting. Talk to me about content marketing. What kind of proactive content marketing did you do? Collis Ta’eed: Every blog starts at the same place, which is absolutely nowhere. You have no visitors, traffic, or interest. For me the biggest challenge is that you are

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Seed Capital Using Crowdfunding: Korstiaan Zandvliet, CEO of Symbid, Amsterdam (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: For investors with zero or limited experience in pre-seed or seed investment, what do you do to mitigate their risks? Of course, this is a highly risky business. How do you recommend or help your investors evaluate deals? Korstiaan Zandvliet: I think the second part of the interview addresses risk analysis and risk

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Bootstrapping a $10M Creative Marketplace: Envato Founder Couple Collis and Cyan Ta’eed (Part 3)

Sramana: What were some of your early benchmark numbers? Collis Ta’eed: It took us six months to build the site. The first night we sold $10. I was disappointed at the time, but looking back I am impressed that we sold something our first day. As a new entrepreneur, I had the idea that the

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Future of Venture Funds: Innovation Coming

Venture funds, traditionally, have been extremely selective about their investments. Many firms barely make 5-10 investments a year, and only about 50 investments in the entire lifetime of a seven year fund. Lately, however, I am observing a different structure emerging in the early stage market. Instead of 5-10 investments a year, some investors are

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Seed Capital Using Crowdfunding: Korstiaan Zandvliet, CEO of Symbid, Amsterdam (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What are the core benefits that your community offers to the investors? Korstiaan Zandvliet: There are several motivations for investors to invest, so the benefits differ accordingly. What the community offers to all investors is engagement and information/updates about the plan. The entrepreneur provides the latter by answering questions, sending out emails, or

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Bootstrapping a $10M Creative Marketplace: Envato Founder Couple Collis and Cyan Ta’eed (Part 2)

Sramana: Did you start a marketplace for photography or for flash files? Collis Ta’eed: Selling Flash on a photography site did not make a lot of sense. It was not meeting our needs, but we were able to see enough of the Flash files selling that we could tell there was indeed customer demand. We

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