The Startup Velocity Question: What Hinders Acceleration in VC Funded Companies?

I have been running 1Mby1M since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years.

Startups that do not have what it takes to achieve velocity should not be venture funded.

Experienced VCs, over time, have developed heuristics to gauge what constitutes a high growth venture investment thesis. 

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Bootstrapping

Over the course of two years, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy with the aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally. This series of posts aims to help you find the one you need easily and provide you with discount coupons.

Building a European EdTech Unicorn from Vienna, Austria: Felix Ohswald, CEO of GoStudent (Part 1)

This is a terrific story of a European EdTech venture that has raised $600 million and is scaling extremely well after three years of not finding a monetization model.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Featured Videos

From Developer to Solo Entrepreneur to $5M+ Revenue: Sporcle Founder and CTO Matt Ramme (Part 1)

Developers interested in bootstrapping ad-supported B-to-C startups would find this discussion valuable.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, and raised, and in what kind of background?

Matt Ramme: I grew up in western New York. I went to college at Carnegie Mellon and studied computer science. When I started, it was computer science and math. I wasn’t as much into math, so I was able to get a minor in German which I enjoyed.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Grain Cofounder and COO Carl Memnon (Part 1)

Carl discusses Grain’s FinTech innovation, and also some of the unique ways in which his company has been financed. Excellent conversation.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Grain.

Student Developers Bootstrapping with a Paycheck, Then Growing to a Million Users: Ben Spring, CEO of TryHackMe (Part 1)

Ben and his co-founder are two techies who started by bootstrapping with a paycheck. With zero marketing budget, they have scaled TryHackMe to a million users and significant revenue.

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?

Ben Spring: I was born and raised in Portsmouth. I also went to the University of Portsmouth. I have a degree in Computer Science.

Building an eSports Venture from Ohio to $10M+ in Revenue: eFuse CEO Matthew Benson (Part 1)

This interview is a fascinating look into the world of Gaming. Read on!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Matthew Benson: I’m born and raised in Ohio. I grew up an hour south of Columbus in a small town called Chillicothe. There wasn’t much going on down there.

Bootstrapping Using Services and Piggybacking from Australia: StoreConnect CEO Mikel Lindsaar (Part 1)

Mikel has built a services company in Australia and spawned six SaaS products out of it. One of them, StoreConnect, is a terrific Bootstrapping by Piggybacking story on top of Salesforce.com. He has exited four of the apps and expects to grow StoreConnect to $100M+ in revenue.

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?

Dutch Student Entrepreneurs Building a Large Scale EdTech Marketplace: StuDocu CEO Marnix Broer (Part 1)

We’ve done a lot of EdTech case studies and also a lot of 2-sided Marketplace Case Studies.
Here’s one from The Netherlands that compares/competes with Course Hero and Quizlet. Terrific story!

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?

From Solo Developer to Venture Scale Entrepreneur: Jordan Boesch, CEO of 7Shifts (Part 1)

Jordan started as a solo entrepreneur in a small province of Canada, Saskatchewan, and has built a heavily funded, high-growth SaaS business. Fascinating journey!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, and raised, and in what kind of background?

Jordan Boesch: I’m from Saskatchewan, a province in Canada. I’m the CEO at 7Shifts which is a team management platform. Before 7Shifts, I was a software developer for many years. I ended up working for my dad who ran some Quiznos locations.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later and Build a World-Class AI Startup from India: Raghu Ravinutala, CEO of Yellow.ai (Part 1)

Raghu has built an incredible AI startup from India with a global base of enterprise clients. Fabulous story!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as the genesis of Yellow.ai.

Raghu Ravinutala: I’m the Co-Founder and CEO of Yellow.ai. Yellow.ai enables enterprises to drive automation on their customer experiences and employee experience by integrating a whole set of enterprise data and delivering phenomenal experiences that the companies can leverage for sales, marketing, HR, and IT automation.

Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Startup with a Paycheck to Exit: Jay Perkins, Co-founder of Kettlebell Kings (Part 1)

There are roll-ups of e-commerce brands going on right now. This case study delves into one such that has exited into a roll-up effort.

Jay Perkins currently runs Living.Fit which produces digital workouts, fitness education courses, and fitness equipment.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?