Building an Internet of Things Platform Company from Zaragoza, Spain: Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to that November 2006 time frame. You decided you were going to do an IoT platform. How did you get the company off the ground? Was it self-financed, bootstrapped, or did you raise money? How did you get going? What was the process of getting this started? Alicia Asin: We

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Serial Entrepreneur Building a Luxury Business: Trevor Traina, CEO of IfOnly (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let me see if I got everything. You did two companies after Compare..net One was SchemaLogic and the second was the one you sold to Intuit. Trevor Traina: Yes, as of 2006. Sramana Mitra: For both of them, you were Chairman, not CEO. Trevor Traina: Correct. Sramana Mitra: Were these your ideas or

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Bootstrapping a $25 Million E-Commerce Company: Saatva Co-Founder Ricky Joshi (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Absolutely. Tell me more about the business itself. First and foremost, who were the people involved when you got this off the ground? You mentioned your co-founder. Where did he come from? How did you meet him? Where do you know him from? Ricky Joshi: There are basically three co-founders of the company—myself,

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Building an Internet of Things Platform Company from Zaragoza, Spain: Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: This is not unusual. First time entrepreneurs start with very vague ideas with what they’re going to do. When I started my first company, I was a graduate student at MIT and I wanted to be an entrepreneur but I didn’t have a good idea about what I was going to do. Can

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Catching Up On Readings: Top 10 Technology Trends for 2015

Gartner’s top 10 technology trends for 2015 cover three themes: the merging of the real and virtual worlds, the advent of intelligence everywhere, and the technology impact of the digital business shift. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Serial Entrepreneur Building a Luxury Business: Trevor Traina, CEO of IfOnly (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You were doing lead generation for online stores, but the revenue models changed. Trevor Traina: Correct. Instead of expecting the brands to pay us for consumer choice data, we let the retailers pay us for qualified leads. Sramana Mitra: That has become the standard business model for that part of the ecosystem—comparison shopping.

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Bootstrapping a $25 Million E-Commerce Company: Saatva Co-Founder Ricky Joshi (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about the dysfunctions of the industry? Why does that industry warrant starting a new company? Ricky Joshi: You basically had four manufacturers who controlled 81% of the market. Majority of them were public companies. The average margins of manufacturers is around 40%. On top of that, you have distribution companies that

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Building an Internet of Things Platform Company from Zaragoza, Spain: Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium (Part 1)

Spain, as you know, is in a terrible economic mess. Entrepreneurs like Alicia are vital to the country’s economic future. She has built a steady, cutting edge technology company with 60+ people from Zaragoza. Impressive! Sramana Mitra: Tell us about your beginning. Where were you born? Where did you grow up and in what kind

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