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.

Bootstrapping to $45 Million from Chicago: RKON CEO Jeff Mullarkey (Part 1)

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

Jeff has built a Managed Service Provider (MSP) business that he now wants to take to $500 million or a billion dollars in revenue. Read how he did it, and what he plans to do in the future.

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

Jeff Mullarkey: I’m from the Chicago area. I grew up in a modest environment. I went to Illinois State University. I graduated with a Marketing degree with little clue of what I want. Right at this moment in time, personal computers had started to emerge. I frankly had never even used one. I stumbled into taking a job selling PCs. That’s how I got into the industry. It was a little bit by fluke. It was a very small industry at that time. This was 1986. That was how I got into IT.

Sramana Mitra: What happens next? >>>

Featured Videos

Bootstrapping All The Way: Infinitely Virtual CEO Adam Stern (Part 1)

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

Adam has used some equipment financing, and plans to use more debt financing, to scale Infinitely Virtual. He has not used any venture capital or private equity, but has built a substantial company. Read on to learn how.

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

Adam Stern: I was born in Los Angeles to parents who came to this country in their early teens. Neither of them had attended university or college. My grandfather was denied entrance into university in Hungary on account of being Jewish. I was, early on, told that I was the hope of the family to go to university and do what my grandfather and father could never do. I grew up in a middle-class household. We didn’t want for anything but we didn’t have anything extravagant either. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Utah: HireVue CEO Mark Newman (Part 1)

True to our 1M/1M mantra, Mark bootstrapped HireVue to $1M in revenue before raising the first funding. Today, the company has raised a total of $92 million, and is going $30 million in revenue. Excellent case study to study!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your story. Tell us where you’re from, where you were born and raised, and in what kind of circumstances.

Mark Newman: I was born in Northern Canada, about 400 miles north of Toronto, in a small town called Timmons. I was a mining industry brat. My dad designed and built the copper smelters. He was a chemistry and metallurgy nut whose favorite thing was taking rocks and turning them into solid bars of something. Living up there, you were able to be blissfully unaware. You live in a small little town. You had chances to go to lakes and kick through trees.

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

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Vacasa Co-Founder Cliff Johnson (Part 1)

Vacasa has bootstrapped to scale in the crowded vacation rental space. Read how!

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

Cliff Johnson: I actually have a fairly unique background, at least for the US anyway. I was born in New Jersey. I’ve lived there until about I was 12 and then moved to a small farm town in Missouri where we had an 80-acre farm. I learned a lot of different skills out there. That was my initial upbringing. My dad is a welder pipefitter.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you go to college?

Cliff Johnson: There’s this small school in Missouri called Drury University. It’s a small school in Springfield, Missouri.

Sramana Mitra: What did you study? >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 1)

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

Sunny has built a very interesting healthcare IT company, overcoming serious challenges. Inspiring story of a bootstrapped success.

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?

Sunny Singh: Give or take, I’ve spent half my life in the US and half my life in India. I grew up in India and finished my undergraduate studies there. Then, I came to the US at the age of 23 to do a couple of Master’s programs. I did three jobs and then started Edifecs in 1996.

Going back to my roots in India, I come from a middle-class family. My father was an international ski hockey player. He played for the Indian team. That was his passion in life. My mother was a homemaker. She focused her life on the kids and our education and making sure that we got everything we needed. >>>

Building a Marketing Software Company from Utah: Convirza CEO Jason Wells (Part 1)

We’ve covered several stories of tech startups in Utah. Convirza is yet another interesting company from the mini tech hub.

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

Jason Wells: I was born and raised in Fresno, California. You may be familiar with it.

Sramana Mitra: I do know, yes.

Jason Wells: It’s interesting. I sure like change and new adventures but as a kid, I lived in the same home. I was the sixth of seven kids. Life was pretty simple for me as a kid. We had five acres. We had a little farm on our property. We had a couple of cows, horses, and chickens. It was an easy life. My entrepreneurial journey started when I was 11 years old. I talked my mom into buying 12 chickens for me. I don’t know how I talked her into buying. She bought them. I took care of them and I sold the eggs back to her. I sold them to all the neighbors. >>>

Bootstrap the First Venture, Raise Money for the Second: cVidya CEO Alon Aginsky (Part 1)

As a variation on our ‘Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later’ theme, we also see many entrepreneurs who have bootstrapped a first company (or business), and then gone onto venture-fund a second. Christian Chabot built Tableau Software in this mode. Sridhar Vembu built Zoho. We have numerous examples of this tried and true path. Something to consider for first-time entrepreneurs chasing venture capital and Unicorns.

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

Alon Aginsky: I was born and raised in Israel. After completing my army duty, I found myself in New York as a young entrepreneur trying to make it. Luckily, I was able to pick an opportunity and start a company in the area of call accounting that later became billing for small operators. That company that I started was a one-man show in the Empire State Building. I managed, after seven years, to take it public on NASDAQ. >>>

Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified (Part 1)

Building businesses has become cheaper by several orders of magnitude. Josh Levy and his team took just over $2 million in angel financing, and has built a profitable business in New York. For those entrepreneurs facing the Series A crunch, this is an important story to follow. You will do fine if you have patient angels, and just use their investment to bootstrap to profitability.

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

Josh Levy: I was born in New Jersey. I went to high school in New Jersey. I went to the University of Maryland for college where I got an undergraduate degree in Finance. I also did a minor in entrepreneurship. I now live in Brooklyn. BeenVerified is headquartered in New York City. I’ve been on the East Coast my whole life. >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services: Manish Sood, CEO of Reltio (Part 1)

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

Here’s yet another case in point in our Bootstrapping Using Services series. Manish is scaling Reltio super fast at this point, and has raised venture capital, consistent with our theme Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later.

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?

Manish Sood: I was born in the northern part of India. I grew up and went to school there. I went to an engineering college in the southern part of India, which was a new experience for me from a location perspective and getting acclimatized to the overall culture and environment. >>>

Building Significant Revenue with Inbound Marketing from Israel: Pepperi CEO Ofer Yourvexel (Part 1)

If you can build a business with inbound marketing primarily, without having to invest heavily in outbound marketing and sales, it is generally much more capital efficient. Ofer shares his experience in building Pepperi from Israel in that revenue run rate.

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

Ofer Yourvexel: I’m from Israel. I was born and raised in Israel. In terms of background, I’m from a regular family in Israel. Nothing good or bad in particular.

Sramana Mitra: What about school? Did you do school in Israel? >>>