Thought Leaders in Online Education: Executive Director of Academic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania, Bobbi Kurshnan (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How much equity do you take against the $20,000 initial funding? Bobbi Kurshnan: Between 6% to 8%. Sramana Mitra: That’s expensive. Bobbi Kurshnan: Yes, but these are early companies. Sramana Mitra: In my program, I advise people against going for these kinds of incubators that take 6%to 8%. I think it’s a terrible model.

Read Full Article »

Featured Videos

Bootstrapping an Online Mattress Brand to $168 Million: Ricky Joshi and Ron Rudzin, Co-Founders of Saatva Mattress (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: 2010 was when you decided to launch the company. Ron Rudzin: That’s correct. Ricky Joshi: It was a soft launch. We got kickstarted towards the tail-end of 2010. Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about the very beginning. What is a soft launch? What were you doing in 2010? What were you trying to

Read Full Article »

Thursday, March 2 – 242nd 1M/1M Mentoring Roundtable For Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 342nd FREE online 1M/1M roundtable mentoring session on Thursday, March 2, 2017, 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

Read Full Article »

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Executive Director of Academic Innovation at University of Pennsylvania, Bobbi Kurshnan (Part 1)

UPenn has both an incubator for EdTech ventures, and an entrepreneurship education program for EdTech. This discussion delves into both programs and more. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to UPenn’s online education activities. Bobbi Kurshnan: I am the Executive Director of Academic Innovation at the University of

Read Full Article »

Can You Bootstrap a Unicorn Startup?

Let’s say you have a great idea for a startup and you have the ambition of building a billion dollar company — a Unicorn. Should you look for investors? Or should you bootstrap this idea to profitability? Is it even possible to bootstrap a Unicorn startup? Has anyone ever bootstrapped one? I suggest you start

Read Full Article »

Bootstrapping an Online Mattress Brand to $168 Million: Ricky Joshi and Ron Rudzin, Co-Founders of Saatva Mattress (Part 1)

    Ron and Ricky have built a luxury mattress brand online. Learn how. 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? Ricky Joshi: I’m from Columbus, Ohio and went to Dartmouth for undergraduate. I went on

Read Full Article »

Catching Up On Readings: Oscars 2017

This feature from The New York Times covers the winners of the 89th annual Academy Awards at the ceremony being held today at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

A Pilot’s Heroic Journey: Jonny Nicol, CEO of Stratajet (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: How many private jet operator companies are out there? Jonny Nicol: In the US, there are 3,300 private jet companies, which have a thing called 135 accreditation. That’s a legal FAA requirement to be a charter company. We deal with only 500 of them because we want to make sure that we’re only

Read Full Article »