Sramana Mitra: Until 2012, it was you and your wife. In 2010, the travel stopped but you still continue in the same model and the same mode of just the two of you in the business? Mattias Larson: Yes, correct. Sramana Mitra: In terms of revenue ramp, what were the numbers for 2009 to 2012?
Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2004? Hamid Shojaee: First of all, that was a very interesting wakeup call in observing how Microsoft, as a company, operates and how competitive they are, and how laser-focused on competition they are. I got introduced to various different things with respect to talking points. Microsoft was very savvy in
Sramana: That is a very good revenue stream for your first year. Great work! By the end of the first year, all three of you had quit your full-time jobs to work on the startup. What happened the second year? Rod Brown: We just continued to grow. I think 95% of our clients deal with
Sramana Mitra: Were you working with an affiliate network? Mattias Larson: Yes, I started with Commission Junction. Right now, we’re probably a member of most of the networks out there. Sramana Mitra: I suppose there is a certain intelligence that you apply to selecting what you want to merchandise on your site. Did you have
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 218th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, June 5, 2014, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea to Sramana Mitra. You’ll gain straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and she’ll answer any
Sramana Mitra: When you were going in to raise the second round of financing, what were you able to achieve at that time? Hamid Shojaee: We had created four different products around this fingerprint recognition device. One of them was for picking up your son or daughter at a day care center so that no
Sramana: How did you balance starting a company in your off hours as a collective team? Rod Brown: We mapped out a plan. In the first month that we rolled out our product, we signed up 5 customers. We felt like that was a good start and we knew we could make money after that.
We’re seeing too many companies assuming they will raise money when they are nowhere near fundable. Folks, you need to get a diagnostic on fundability. Reality Crowd TV During the presentations, first Manolis Sfinarolakis from New Britain, Connecticut, pitched Reality Crowd TV, a network and suite of services for entrepreneurs looking to crowdfund their startups.