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 Capital Efficient Second Venture: LiftLab CEO John Wallace (Part 1)

Sramana Mitra: John, welcome to the show again. What are you up to these days? It looks like we talked a while ago about your previous company DataSong and you’re up to a new adventure. So, tell us about it.

John Wallace: I’ve been fortunate to be building Lift Lab for the past five years. The team had built a company with me called DataSong, which, you covered. I feel very honored and fortunate to be a second time attendee on one of these interviews.

Featured Videos

Building a Terrific EdTech Venture in India: Pallav Pandey, CEO of Uolo (Part 1)

Pallav is a serial entrepreneur and one of the cofounders of Knowlarity. Readers may recall our Knowlarity story as told by Ambarish Gupta. Pallav’s newest venture is a fantastic case study in positioning and Go-to-Market Strategy for EdTech.

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

Building a Venture Scale AI Company: Observe.AI CEO Swapnil Jain (Part 1)

Swapnil makes a very clear distinction between his goal of becoming a Centaur ($100M+ revenue company), not a Unicorn ($1B+ valuation). Read on to learn about his journey.

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

Building an AI Unicorn: Glean CEO Arvind Jain (Part 1)

Arvind is an experienced entrepreneur who was able to raise $15M on a concept to solve a big problem. Since then, Glean has been abundantly funded, generates abundant revenue and has become a legitimate Unicorn.

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

Building a Fashion E-commerce Business and Surviving Covid: Go Dash Dot CEO Hannah Fastov (Part 1)

Excellent story of a fashion e-commerce entrepreneur bringing to market a range of new bags.
Positioning, customer acquisition, business development, partnerships – many topics are dealt with in great detail in this conversation. Enjoy!

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

Building a Global AI Venture for Medical Imaging Analysis from India: Prashant Warier, CEO of Qure.ai (Part 1)

Prashant has built a wonderful Healthcare AI company with 1600 customers worldwide. This is extremely sophisticated navigation. Please read on to learn the nuances.

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

Bootstrapping an AI Chatbot Startup with a Paycheck: Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover (Part 1)

It took Ankush and his cofounders two years to launch their first customer, The Indian Railways. During this time, the founders held on to their jobs, diligently fulfilling their responsibilities while also pursuing their dreams.

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

Bootstrapping an AI-Powered Security Startup to $10M+ in Revenue: Osprey Security CEO Rohit Anabheri (Part 1)

Rohit has effectively used the Bootstrapping Using Services technique to bootstrap an AI-Powered Enterprise Security venture to mid eight figure revenues. In that process, he has turned down offers for Venture Capital. I believe, in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, currently, Bootstrapping Using Services is one of the best ways to find problems to solve and build successful companies.

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: For Educators

For educators and people who want to build thriving communities of entrepreneurs, we have designed a couple of courses that give a roadmap.

Non-Technical Founders Building a Venture Scale SaaS Company: Sendoso CEO Braydan Young (Part 1)

Braydan and his cofounder are sales guys who have bootstrapped Sendoso to revenue and then raised over $150 million in VC money to scale an excellent SaaS company. Braydan discusses some of the mistakes and challenges, as well as their many successes.

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