From Hardcore Techie to Unicorn Entrepreneur: Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When did you reach some level of cruising altitude? What year would that be? Dheeraj Pandey: We were still the fastest to half-billion in 2015. Along the way, there were jitters. There’s always turbulence. In 2015, there was turbulence when the Intel issue came up. They had a massive number of bugs on

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping to Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Over the last decade and more, I’ve had the privilege of working with a large number of bootstrapped entrepreneurs. These include self-financed companies and also modestly capitalized startups that operate in a capital-efficient manner applying the principles of bootstrapping. [You can take our free Bootstrapping Course

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures (Part 4)

Rahul Chandra: I very strong selection criteria that have a lot to do with growth. Growth is a big factor. Let’s say I’m part of a micro-finance investment cap table. My response is, in India, if you’re not doing things with the right scale, it’s not going to mean anything. It’s a lot like how

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From Hardcore Techie to Unicorn Entrepreneur: Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was the size of your Blumberg Capital round? What milestones were you able to achieve with that? Dheeraj Pandey: It was a million and a half. Word spread out that three Aster Data people had started a company. Lightspeed came within 10 months and we raised a $10 million round and converted

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Gans Subramanian, Managing Partner at Hourglass Venture Partners (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s do a couple of examples to illustrate what you’re saying with some more visceral understanding. Pre-seed is a very interesting field of investment. There aren’t that many pre-seed funds. Gans Subramanian: There’s another company in the cybersecurity space. These founders have a clear view of the problem. They are technical founders and

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Catching Up On Readings: Venture Funding in Q1 ’22

This report from Crunchbase News analyzes the trends in venture funding in the first quarter of 2022. There were 34 private companies newly valued at $1 billion or more in a disclosed funding in March 2022, compared to 49 in February and 46 in January. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Rahul Chandra, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How many of those 11 investments are in EdTech? Rahul Chandra: Just one so far. Sramana Mitra: Do you want to talk about that? Rahul Chandra: We have not announced this one, but I can talk about it. The premise is similar to what I’d said. There is a two-dimensional, non-interactive nature to

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From Hardcore Techie to Unicorn Entrepreneur: Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Going from a techie to an entrepreneur, I presume you did a lot of founder-led selling. What was that transition like? Dheeraj Pandey: One is just humanism. Business is about people. You have to connect with people. Difficult words like negotiation – if you replace this with building trust, it’s much easier. People

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