Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 2)

Manick Bhan: Just a few years after that, you had these rumblings of the next big tech boom. When Facebook went public, it was an incredible experience to see a company that had grown up quietly and become so huge and valuable. At the same time, that same roommate who infected me with the finance bug ended

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Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  “My journey was as unexceptional as you can imagine,” says Manick, in describing how he got to $1 million Annual Revenue Rate in transactions before raising financing. Read on for the whole story. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by going back to your very beginnings. I want

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A Serial Entrepreneur’s Awesome Journey from Austin, Texas: Jason Cohen, CTO of WP Engine (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What were the financing rounds? You raised your first financing within 18 months when you were getting real traction so you did bootstrap the first phase. Jason Cohen: Right. In August of 2011, we raised our first little A round. Then a year later in the same month, we did a B round.

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A Serial Entrepreneur’s Awesome Journey from Austin, Texas: Jason Cohen, CTO of WP Engine (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Where are we timeline-wise now? Jason Cohen: We’re still in the mid-2000s. Just accelerating through that, I sold Smart Bear in 2007. I left in 2009. I had to stick around for a year. Sramana Mitra: To whom did you sell this company to? Jason Cohen: There was another company called Automated QA.

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Catching Up On Readings: Augmented World Expo 2016

This feature from Engadget looks at the high points and low points of the Augmented World Expo 2016 held in Santa Clara last week. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

A Serial Entrepreneur’s Awesome Journey from Austin, Texas: Jason Cohen, CTO of WP Engine (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Being the author of a book gives you huge credibility. Jason Cohen: Even now when everyone knows you can publish, it does. We were doing enterprise sales where credibility is even more important. I remember being with a potential customer in San Diego. Our champion inside the company threw one of our books

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June 9th – 308th 1M/1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 308th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, June 9, 2016, 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

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A Serial Entrepreneur’s Awesome Journey from Austin, Texas: Jason Cohen, CTO of WP Engine (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go down the path of your content marketing. You said you published a book. Tell us more about what was the marketing strategy around your code review product? Jason Cohen: I have to give credit where credit is due. In ITWatchDogs, Gerry had this idea because it had just become possible to

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