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.

Concept Financing for a Fat Startup: Tomer Shiran, CEO of Dremio (Part 1)

Yes, concept financing still happens from time to time, especially for fat startups, but you need to have deep domain knowledge, and strong investor relationships, to pull one off.

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

Tomer Shiran: I was actually born in Israel. At the age of one, I moved to the United States so that my dad could do his Ph.D. at Stanford. I spent the next 10 years living in the Bay Area. This was early 80’s. I was on Stanford campus most of the time. Then, we moved back to Israel when I was about 11. I then went through middle school and high school there. I did my military service and undergraduate at the Technion. >>>

Featured Videos

Bootstrapping to $5 Million: Under30Experiences CEO Matt Wilson (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Matt has built a fan business using content marketing to sell travel experiences to a millennial demographic. Very cool!

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

Matt Wilson: I grew up in upstate New York. I grew up in a little tiny town called Stormville New York. It’s about 60 minutes outside of New York. It’s not really that close to the city where there was much happening yet. It wasn’t extremely rural. I just started being an enterprising young man whether it was mowing lawns or picking golf balls out of the local ponds. Selling them on eBay was my first online business. That really ignited the >>>

Bootstrapping with Services from Michigan: Amjad Hussain, CEO of Algo.ai (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

I am always thrilled to see great entrepreneurship in various parts of the world that are off-center. Well, here’s a great one from Detroit.

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?

Amjad Hussain: I was born in a very small village of Pakistan.

Sramana Mitra: Where in Pakistan?

Amjad Hussain: A town about a hundred km south of Lahore. >>>

How an IT Services Startup Wants to Disrupt Itself in the AI Era: Sanjay Jupudi, CEO of Qentelli (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

AI will disrupt outsourcing services companies in a very big way. We talk to Sanjay on how he plans to prepare.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning of your personal journey. Tell me where you’re from, where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background. Since this is a co-founder story, it would be great if you could also bring a little bit of Prasanna’s story.

Sanjay Jupudi: I’m from India.

Sramana Mitra: What part of India? >>>

Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to 5 Million Plus: Nick Shaw, CEO of Renaissance Periodization (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.

Nick has built a very interesting e-learning company and addressed scalability with nifty strategic choices. Read on. You’ll learn a lot.

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?

Nick Shaw: I was born and raised in the state of Michigan. I grew up with the goal of wanting to go to the University of Michigan. It’s a top-level school. I was lucky enough to get accepted there. I started in the Sports Management program. I originally wanted to be an athletic director. >>>

Bootstrapping with Paycheck to $15 Million from Tennessee: Gene Caballero, CEO of GreenPal (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

This is a fantastic story of a founder duo bootstrapping with a paycheck, now growing from $5M to $15M in one year, with a virtual team of freelancers. Your classic 21^st century internet business. No outside financing whatsoever!

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?

Gene Caballero: I was born in Lima, Peru. My dad’s side of the family are all entrepreneurs. My grandfather had his own propeller business. We >>>

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Neil Vaswani, CEO of Corestream (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Neil has turned a $3M investment into a ~$10M annual revenue company by addressing a cumbersome piece of workflow in benefits management. Read on to 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?

Neil Vaswani: I was born in New York and lived there for a part of my life. My parents are from India. I did live in India for a while and spent some time in Europe. I went to school at Babson College and then moved back to New York City right around 2000. I started Corestream probably about 2006. >>>

Building a Fast Growth, Cutting-Edge Insurance Brokerage: Karn Saroya, CEO of Cover (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

This is a terrific story of a team that has tremendous expertise in building and acquiring customers for consumer apps, and how they applied that unfair advantage to disrupt a domain (insurance).

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?

Karn Saroya: I’m a Canadian living in Silicon Valley. I was born in Canada in Vancouver. I was born and raised there. I went to Queens and eventually MIT. >>>

Building a VC-Funded B2C CRM Company From Virginia: Zaius Founder and CTO Spencer Pingry (Part 1)

We love companies that have roots in off-center geographies. Zaius started in Virginia, raised capital in Boston, and has grown to ~500 customers with a $24k average ARR per customer. These are healthy metrics, and for the team in Virginia, accomplishments to be proud of.

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?

Spencer Pingry: I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona. I lived there for the first 24 years of my life. I went to the University of >>>

A Kick-Ass Woman Entrepreneur: Cooper Harris, CEO of Klickly (Part 1)

This is a terrific entrepreneurial story of a woman entrepreneur with no technology background who is killing it with a technology startup.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? What’s your background?

Cooper Harris: I’m from the southeast of the East Coast. I was born in Atlanta and I grew up in North Carolina just because my mom is a professor at Duke and UNC. I also studied at Duke.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you do your education? >>>