Serial Entrepreneurship in Pittsburgh: Ron Bianchini’s Amazing Journey (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: We can go on and on about Computer Science, but what did you do after Carnegie Mellon? Ron Bianchini: I graduated in 1989. They asked me to stay on as a professor. So, I stayed on and taught. I very much enjoyed Computer Engineering. When my dad was at NYU and even when

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Successful Pivots on Product, Market, Business Model: Gigya Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Eyal Magen (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What happens next? Eyal Magen: We went through the whole Internet boom. The bubble exploded and we had to survive. Eventually, we sold the company. When the company was sold, there was a comeback in the Internet and for raising money. Out of Hotbar, for example, came out seven or eight startups. These

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Serial Entrepreneurship in Pittsburgh: Ron Bianchini’s Amazing Journey (Part 1)

Ron is a fellow MIT alumnus who went to Carnegie Mellon for his PhD, and subsequently has done three successful systems ventures. This story offers insights into his methodology. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning of your story. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances? Ron Bianchini: I

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Thursday, May 7 – 258th 1M/1M Mentoring Roundtable For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 258th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, May 7, 2015, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/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

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Successful Pivots on Product, Market, Business Model: Gigya Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Eyal Magen (Part 1)

Gigya started off with one set of market assumptions, and along the way, pivoted to a drastically different market, addressing an entirely different pain point. Four years later, it switched from an ad-supported business model to SaaS. It survived all these changes, and has now built a robust company, fueled by over $100 million of

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Catching Up On Readings: Disrupt NY 2015 Hackathon

TechCrunch features the winners of Disrupt NY 2015 Hackathon held in New York today. Witness, an emergency service iPhone app, is the grand prize winner while Picorico and MoolahMe are runners up. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

A Textbook Case Study of Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bhavin Parikh, CEO of Magoosh (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2014? Bhavin Parikh: There was more growth in 2014. Also, how do we start expanding outside of GMAT and GRE? We realized that we could be a very strong company in GMAT and GRE, but to really achieve our mission and vision, we needed to expand much broader. We started

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Bootstrapping from Belgium: iText CEO Bruno Lowagie (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What about business strategy? Not every company can, by the nature of their business, grow to $500 million. That’s what the VCs are looking for. By the nature of your business, how big a business can you build? Bruno Lowagie: If we continue what we are doing now, I don’t think we’re going

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