Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Venture: Elite Fixtures CEO Steven Annese (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How much inventory did you take on and how did you source that inventory? This is one of the key questions for every bootstrapped e-commerce entrepreneur. Steven Annese: When I first started, I didn’t take any inventory on. I basically had a drop shop agreement with a major distributor at that time that

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Flywire CEO Mike Massaro (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Where do you recommend entrepreneurs to focus on if they’re looking to work in this space? What kind of problems would you steer them towards? Mike Massaro: In financial technology cross-border transactions, I think the traditional money remittance space is prime for disruption. It’s not a space we’re directly in, but a lot of

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Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Venture: Elite Fixtures CEO Steven Annese (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Did you know anything about the lighting business? Steven Annese: I didn’t but my sister was working at a lighting distributor. She told me that there were some companies that were trying to do business with them in the online world. That’s actually where my lead came from so I have to thank

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Flywire CEO Mike Massaro (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What are the segments besides education? You’ve taken the education use case and fleshed it out. What other big-ticket items are you catering to? Mike Massaro: Back at Money 2020 Conference in Vegas, we announced medical tourisms reports. In a similar manner to what we do with educational institutions, a number of the

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Billion Dollar Unicorns: Reconsider Your Aspirations

In November last year, I read a brilliant piece titled Reconsider by David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, and a partner at Basecamp, a small 50-people collaboration software company. David starts the piece by saying: It [Basecamp] didn’t disrupt anything. It didn’t add any new members to the three-comma club. It was never

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Thursday, Jan. 14 – 289th 1M/1M Mentoring Roundtable For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 289th FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/9:30 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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Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Venture: Elite Fixtures CEO Steven Annese (Part 1)

I’ve always been bullish about niche e-commerce. Here’s yet another story of an entrepreneur who has successfully bootstrapped a company in high-end light fixtures. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Steven Annese: I’m a child

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Catching Up On Readings: At CES 2016

This feature from TechCrunch looks at some of the coolest gadgets at CES 2016 including drones, augmented reality display, solar-powered grill, and grillbot. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.