Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, Build an EdTech Unicorn from Canada: John Baker, CEO of D2L (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The sales model at this point is still direct selling? John Baker: Yes, still the same. It had expanded into going to conferences to figure out who to talk to. Now we were talking to Deans or Provosts.  Sramana Mitra: How was the average deal size moving?

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, Build an EdTech Unicorn from Canada: John Baker, CEO of D2L (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In the very beginning, when you were going door to door asking people to sign up, what were you charging? John Baker: In the early days, I built a model that was based on cost per student. The faculty members that I reached out to didn’t have the budget for this. I said,

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Capital Efficient Startup, Venture-Scale Growth: ShipMonk CEO Jan Bednar (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Did you choose the first few customers by some threshold? Were they doing a certain amount of business already? Jan Bednar: It was almost the opposite. They were companies that nobody wanted to do business with. A lot of the fulfillment companies in 2015 didn’t want to work with small startups because they

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, Build an EdTech Unicorn from Canada: John Baker, CEO of D2L (Part 1)

This is a terrific story of bootstrapped entrepreneurship in EdTech. The company also has a great PaaS strategy. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

503rd Roundtable Recording on October 1, 2020: With Semyon Dukach, One Way Ventures

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here: 503rd 1Mby1M Roundtable October 1, 2020: With Semyon Dukach, One Way Ventures

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping Using Services from Sweden

European entrepreneurs often successfully bootstrap using services. The chasing investors from the get go disease is less prevalent on the other side of the Atlantic, although the virus from Silicon Valley has been traveling now to all corners of the world. Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo share their journey, having crossed $7

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Roundtable Recap: October 1 – Validate the Business Case Before Writing Code

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Semyon Dukach, Managing Partner at One Way Ventures, an immigrant founder focused VC fund. Oyaa As for entrepreneur pitches, this week we had Sangeetha Iyer from Franklin Park, New Jersey, pitching Oyaa, a household organizing solution marketplace.

October 8 – 504th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 504th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, October 8, 2020, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your

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