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 Cutting Edge Drone Technology Company: Tom Walker, CEO of DroneUp (Part 1)

The drone industry is a massive beneficiary of the Corvid pandemic. Read how Tom has shepherded DroneUp to hyper-growth from its bootstrapped beginnings and a slow start.

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?

Featured Videos

Building a Capital-Efficient, Highly Scalable Smart City IoT Venture: LYT CEO Timothy Menard (Part 1)

You would think deep tech AI / IoT startups take gobs of venture capital to build. Read on to see how Tim has built an incredibly capital-efficient business with massive growth potential using grant money and revenues. Superb company!

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

Bootstrapping Using Facebook Ads to $5M: Dow Janes Co-founders Laurie-Anne King and Britt Baker (Part 1)

Facebook gets a tremendous bad rap for its many nefarious side effects. Numerous small businesses, however, have been possible because of Facebook’s incredible Ad engine.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What is the story leading up to this? We’ll do Laurie-Anne as well in that mode.

20-Year Journey of a Fat Startup with Major Pivots: Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul (Part 1)

VCs invest in startups that go from zero to $100M in 5 to 7 years. It has taken Azul almost 20 years to make that journey. Scott discusses the pivots and strategic shifts that have made the journey possible. With patience and persistence, and with an excellent two-pronged Open Source strategy, Scott has built Azul into a compelling business with many exit options from IPO to various acquisition paths.

From Brazil to a US HRTech Success Story: Talentify: Othamar Filho (Part 1)

Brazilian entrepreneur Othamar Filho identified an HRTech problem to solve while building a business in Brazil.

Read how he navigated his way to building a successful company in the US.

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

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an EdTech Company to $10M: Boom Cards CEO Mary Oemig (Part 1)

Mary and her husband, Eric, have been scrappy bootstrappers through a decade-long journey building Boom Cards. Awesome 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?

Leveraging Channels and Slovenia to build Successful Businesses: Simon Taylor, CEO of HYCU (Part 1)

Simon offers excellent insights into creating an unfair advantage with unique engineering team leverage in off-center locations. He also discusses creative channel strategy techniques.

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?

Applying AI to Lead Generation: Rev CEO Jonathan Spier (Part 1)

I did a startup in 1998 by applying AI to the lead generation and qualification problem. It was early. The data was not yet rich enough.

Now, the data is there. Can the problem finally be solved at the right level of sophistication?

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born and raised?

568th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Abinash Saikia, EnCloudEn (Part 1)

Abinash Saikia, Co-founder of EnCloudEn and former 1Mby1M Premium member, has successfully bootstrapped his venture to an exit and discusses the process in great depth.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to the premise of EnCloudEn.

Abinash Saikia: I have had a pretty good education from IIT Chennai and, subsequently, an MBA from IIM Bangalore. I worked for a couple of years but the entrepreneurial bug was always there. I could not continue for much longer. I left my job and started a company called SmartBuildings. I was at that company for about three years. It was mostly an IoT-based energy conservation solution.

Building a Capital-Efficient Niche SaaS Startup from The Netherlands: Hatch CEO Joris Kroese (Part 1)

Often niche ideas are great to build capital-efficient, profitable startups on.

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?

Joris Kroese: I was born in a small village close to Amsterdam. I was born in 1977. I studied Information Engineering. After my studies, I started my first venture which was an e-commerce venture selling, mainly, consumer electronics in Benelux and Spain. I did that for about 10 years.