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.

Launching and Scaling a Security Startup During an Out-of-Favor Time: HyTrust President Eric Chiu (Part 1)

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

Eric Chiu is the co-founder and president of HyTrust, a virtualization security company. He has more than 13 years of experience in high-tech management and finance. Most recently he was the VP of sales and business development for Cemaphore Systems. Prior to Cemaphore, he led business development activities at MailFrontier (acquired by SonicWALL) and mySimon (acquired by CNET Networks). In addition to his start-up management experience, he was a venture capitalist for Brentwood Venture Capital (now Redpoint Ventures) and Pinnacle Ventures, a venture fund he co-founded. Prior to Brentwood Venture Capital, Eric served in the M&A Group for Robertson, Stephens and Company. He holds a BS in materials science and engineering from UC Berkeley.

Sramana: Eric, let’s start off with your personal story. Where are you from, and what kind of background leads up to the HyTrust story?

Eric Chiu: I am a traditional engineer who went to Berkeley for my undergraduate degree. I grew up in the Bay Area, and when I graduated from college, I went into investment banking. It was unusual for me because I had planned on going into academia. I found that my personality was not geared towards research and academia and decided to go into investment banking. That was one of the biggest changes that led me on the path I am on today. I consider that experience to be my MBA. >>>

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CEO Transition, Founder Liquidity, and More: Bill Daniel, CEO AllWebLeads (Part 1)

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

Bill Daniel is a serial entrepreneur and the Chief Executive Officer of All Web Leads, an online provider of high quality insurance leads. Prior to joining the company in 2008, Bill was most recently the President and CEO of Surgient, a leading data-center virtualization management software company. Prior to Surgient, Bill held Senior Vice President roles at Vignette, a publicly-traded developer of content management software. Prior to Vignette, Bill founded a number of successful software companies including Wallop (acquired by IBM in 1998), Datis Corporation, and Mozart Systems. He previously held sales positions at Oracle and other Silicon Valley technology companies. Bill holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

Sramana: Bill, let’s start with your background. What is the story that leads up to AllWebLeads?

Bill Daniel: I was born in an little town called Anderson, South Carolina. I married my wife, who I met in the 7th grade, and her maiden name also happened to be Anderson. I went to school at Dartmouth College. I joined Polaroid after college when they were the epitome of a high tech college. It was run by Dr. Edwin Land who invented the instant photography chemistry and mechanics. For someone like me who had an engineering background it was very intriguing. Within a few years I made my way out to Silicon Valley. >>>

Acquiring Deadpool Technology to Leapfrog a Services Company into Products: Canara CEO Steve Cotton (Part 1)

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

Steve Cotton is the founder and executive chairman of Canara, a company that provides turnkey backup power solutions and predictive monitoring solutions for mission critical operations focusing on data centers, telecommunications sites, wind/solar farms, smart grid and electric vehicles. Prior to Canara he was the director of sales at Sendmail, Inc. He has also worked in business development at Lucent Technologies and as a Product Manager at Octel Communications. He has a MIS in information technology from California State University.

Sramana: Steve, where does your story begin? What is the background that put your on the career path to where you are today at Canara?

Steve Cotton: My career started with Octel Communications. I started for them right out of college. I started off as a product manager before going into business development and sales. I spent 12 years there. It was an entrepreneurial company but had already reach 40 million dollars in revenue before I joined. We grew the company to 1 billion dollars of revenue before we were acquired by Lucent Technologies. >>>

Building a Conversion Optimization Company from London: Graham Cooke, CEO of Qubit (Part 1)

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

Graham Cooke is the CEO and co-founder of Qubit, a conversion optimization company. Prior to founding Qubit, Graham worked for Google, where he ended up as the global leader in charge of conversion rate optimization. Today he is focused on Qubit’s mission of helping businesses get close to their customers by discovering behavioral insights in visitor data and delivering personalized content to improve the online experience.

Sramana: Graham, let’s start with some of your personal background. Where are you from and where were you born? What circumstances lead up to your entrepreneurial journey?

Graham Cooke: I was born in New Jersey and I lived in the United States until I was seven years old. My father had the opportunity to move our family to London, and we ended up living there for two years. We all loved the UK and we ended up staying. I have had the benefit of having US roots while living in both the UK and the US. I essentially grew up in England. The British people make you feel like you are an American living in England. >>>

Successfully Navigating a Slow-Growth Healthcare IT Industry for 10 Years: Stan Nowak, CEO of Silverlink (Part 1)

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

Stan Nowak is the founder and CEO of Silverlink, a healthcare consumer outreach company. Under Stan’s leadership, Silverlink has developed a flexible communications technology, proprietary analytics capabilities and a team with deep industry expertise. Stan’s background includes more than 22 years of general and executive management in technology services. Prior to founding Silverlink, he held executive roles with StorageNetworks, GTE, and InterGen (Bechtel). Stan holds a master’s degree from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Harvard College.

Sramana: Stan, let’s start by looking into your background a bit. Where are you from, and where did your entrepreneurial passion develop?

Stan Nowak: I grew up in New England and was raised primarily in Rhode Island. I went to Harvard and spent time in the Boston area working in the energy business in my early career. I was overseas from 1993 to 1996 working in India, where I developed energy projects there as the country manager. I returned to the States in 1996, which was the birth of the commercial Internet. >>>

Built to Enjoy in Utah: Jana Francis, Founder, Steals.com (Part 1)

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

Jana Francis is the co-founder of Steal Network, an interactive marketing company that delivers top-quality brands and products one day at a time to their online communities of women through the websites babySTEALS.com, scrapbookSTEALS.com, kidSTEALS.com, and sheSTEALS.com. Before founding Steal Network, Jana spent her career specializing in advertising and marketing for technology and internet companies in Silicon Valley, California, and for KSL, the largest media company in Utah.

Sramana: Jana, where does your story begin? Where are you from and where did you grow up?

Jana: I grew up in Utah. My father was an engineer. I was raised in a household that had computers in every room when virtually nobody else even had one in their house. We had the original Apple, and my father would teach me how to write programs to get my name to flash across the screen. I was a very early adopter of technology. >>>

Helping SaaS Companies Grow Through Revenue Sharing: Avangate CEO Carl Theobald (Part 1)

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

Carl Theobald is the CEO of Avangate, a e-commerce and partner management solutions provider for software-as-a-service companies. Theobald has held senior executive roles at both large enterprise and venture-backed software companies, including being a VP at Oracle, founder at RubiconSoft, and SVP at Serena Software. At Oracle, Theobald helped establish the CRM division, delivering sales, marketing and e-commerce products that generated in excess of tenfold revenue growth over two years. Most recently, as SVP of products and customer service, he launched the first SaaS-based solution at Serena Software, which was taken private by Silver Lake Partners for $1.2 billion.

Sramana: Carl, let’s start with your personal background. Where does the story begin?

Carl Theobald: I had two passions in life growing up. One was writing music and the other was writing software. I started doing both at 10 years old. I quickly discovered that I would not make a lot of money pursuing music, so I entered Princeton University to pursue an engineering degree. After that I went to Stanford and joined a PhD for engineering economic systems because I thought the idea of using quantitative methods to solve real-world problems was interesting. I was working at Oracle part-time while I was at Stanford and ended up enrolling full-time into Oracle. >>>

Indian Services Entrepreneurs Venturing Into Products: Suresh Shankar and Srikant Sastri, CoFounders of Crayon Data (Part 1)

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

Suresh Shankar is the Founder Director at Crayon Data. Prior to founding Crayon Data he held various positions at IBM, RedPill Solutions, ANN AMRO Bank, Young & Rubicon, and JWT Fulcrum. He was the CEO at RedPill which was sold to IBM in 2009. Srikant Sastri is another serial entrepreneur and seasoned executive who joined the founding team at Crayon Data. He has held varying positions at Team4U, Vivaki, a Growth-For-All before founding Crayon Data.

Sramana: Before we delve into the story of Crayon Data I would like to get a sense of your backgrounds. Suresh, why don’t you go first.

Suresh Shankar: I was born in Chennai and grew up with a proper middle class background. My father was a lawyer and education was everything. My father also encouraged me to play a lot of cricket which was a lot of fun growing up. When I began looking at college choices I took the easy way out. I knew that I wanted to do an MBA eventually, so I figured I should start out with business studies for three years before my MBA instead of five years of engineering school. I ended up going to IIM Calcutta which is where I met Srikant. He ended up taking all of the notes while I skipped class and took all of his notes. >>>

Getting Customers to Prepay to Start Up, Then Building a $300M Business: RMS CEO Hemant Shah (Part 1)

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

Hemant Shah is the co-founder, president and CEO of RMS, a leader in catastrophic risk modeling. He co-founded RMS in 1989 based on his research work at Stanford University. Twenty years later, RMS is a global leader in developing models for things such as hurricanes, terrorist activity, and earthquakes.

Sramana: Hemant, let’s start by reviewing your background. Where are you from? What is the backdrop to your entrepreneurial journey?

Hemant Shah: I grew up on the Stanford campus. I have been here all my life. I was born in Pennsylvania, where my father was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I went to school here at Gunn High in Palo Alto. I then went on to Stanford for my bachelor and masters degrees. I lived in Palo Alto and Menlo Park before I finally moved to San Francisco. Of course, my mother got upset when I moved to San Francisco because it was so far away! While I didn’t go far, that was the first time I had left the ZIP code. >>>

Building a Global Software Company from France: BonitaSoft CEO Miguel Valdés-Faura (Part 1)

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

Miguel Valdés-Faura is the CEO and co-founder of BonitaSoft, a software company with the mission of democratizing the Business Process Management. Miguel founded the Bonita project in 2001, with the vision that BPM would become mainstream in every company’s IT portfolio. Prior to Bonitasoft, Miguel led R&D, pre-sales and support for the BPM division of Bull Information Systems, a major European systems provider. Miguel holds a degree in computer science from the URV and a master’s degree from Nancy and Metz universities.

Sramana: Miguel, let’s start with your story. Where are you from? Where were you raised? What is the story of BonitaSoft?

Miguel Valdés-Faura: I am from Barcelona, Spain. Most of the story behind the company and the open source software that we push at BonitaSoft was initially built in France. Everything started in 2001 when I was moving from Barcelona to northern France. I was just finishing my degree in computer science, and I was working in a research center in Europe that is pretty well respected. I was working with people who were very specialized in building collaboration solutions. >>>