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.

British Startup Teaching English: Shiv Rajendran, Co-founder of LanguageLab, London (Part 1)

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

Shiv Rajendran is the co-founder and operations director of LanguageLab, a company founded in 2005 aiming to teach English by leveraging the capabilities of virtual worlds. He is a leading educational technologist frequently speaking at conferences on virtual world education. He is involved with the EU-funded projects and advises on virtual worlds in academic contexts. He has extensive experience building, testing and managing complex systems both in secure and public (online) environments. Shiv has a 1st class honors degree in computer science from Brunel University as well as a Master‘s degree with merit from Kings College, London.

Sramana: Shiv, let’s go back to the beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from, what is your backstory?

Shiv Rajendran: I was born in London in the early 1980s to a Sri Lankan parents who had migrated over the decade before. I grew up in London under the traditional British state education system. I was dyslexic and actually did quite poorly, and unfortunately I was not diagnosed with dyslexia until I was 18. >>>

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An SEO-Driven Bootstrapping Success: Benchmark Email CEO Curt Keller (Part 1)

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

Curt Keller is the founder and CEO of Benchmark Email, a global email marketing services company. After buying his first business in 2000, Keller grew Benchmark Email from a small operation with a handful of employees to a multinational company offering email marketing services for English, German, Chinese, Italian, Spanish and Japanese-speaking clients. Keller is also an outspoken advocate for good email marketing practices, and he currently writes on this topic for Allbusiness.com, Imediaconnection.com, and Recharge Asia Magazine.

Sramana: Curt, let’s go back to the beginning of your story. Where are you from? What is your background?

Curt Keller: I grew up in Southern California. I am a home-grown kid and I have been here my entire life. My entrepreneurial fever came from my father, who was not an entrepreneur. He was an engineer by trade, and when I was 12 or 13 we used to spend countless hours looking over real estate magazines. >>>

Replacing Founders with CEOs: A Discussion with Paul Doscher, CEO, Lucid Imagination (Part 1)

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

Paul Doscher is the CEO of Lucid Imagination, a company that delivers enterprise-grade search development platforms based on Apache Lucene/Solr open source search. Prior to Lucid, Paul held the position of CEO for Exalead Inc, a global provider of enterprise search, where he led the company from 2008 through 2011. In 2003, Paul became CEO and one of the principal founders of JasperSoft. In 2000, Paul joined VMware as the company’s EVP of worldwide field operations, where he defined and executed the distribution strategy that formed the basis of the company’s success. Earlier in his career, Paul held positions at several companies, including general manager of the Americas for Business Objects (now SAP), vice president of worldwide marketing and business development for Entrust, and vice president of U.S. channels for Oracle.

Sramana: Paul, let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where did you grow up, and what led you down this path?

Paul Doscher: I was raised in a lower-middle-class family in the Bronx in New York City. I went through a reasonably decent parochial school and then attended Georgia Tech on an ROTC [Reserve Officers’ Training Corps] scholarship. That is the only way I could have gone to school. >>>

Bootstrapping to 8 Million from Brittany – Digitaleo CEO Jocelyn Denis (Part 1)

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

Jocelyn Denis is the founder and CEO of Digitaleo, a premium mobile marketing solutions company. Prior to founding Digitaleo he served as a product manager at Ubisoft and worked in sales for Kraft. He started Digitaleo in Brittany, France, out of his attic before the smart phone revolution. Today Digitaleo is an international company with a solid foundation.

Sramana: Jocelyn, let’s go back to the beginning of your story. Tell us about you. Who are you and what kind of environment did you grow up in?

Jocelyn Denis: I come from France. I grew up in the western region of France, and there is a lot of history there. When I was a youngster, I really wanted to become an entrepreneur someday. >>>

Facebook’s Professional Twin: Identified Co-Founder Adeyemi Ajao (Part 1)

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

Adeyemi Ajao is the co-founder of Identified.com, a way for professionals to manage their identities on the Internet. Prior to co-founding Identified, Adeyemi founded Tuenti.com and JobandTalent.com, the largest social networks and executive job sites, respectively, in Spain.

Sramana: Adeyemi, let’s start with your personal story. Also, if you could give some background on your co-founder, that would be helpful. Where do you and your co-founder come from? What background led up to the Identified story? >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Special Monday Roundtable

Entrepreneurs are invited to attend two FREE online roundtable competitions next week. Digital commerce entrepreneurs are competing for 12 scholarships to the 1M/1M program for entrepreneurs as part of the BlueSnap–Elance Entrepreneur Development Program.

Monday, June 4, at 8:00 a.m. PDT/11:00 a.m. EDT, register here.
Thursday, June 7, at 8:00 a.m. PDT/11:00 a.m. EDT, register here.

Click on the full paragraph link for all of this week’s posts. >>>

Niche E-Commerce in Textbooks: ClassBook CEO Tony Pfister (Part 1)

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

Tony Pfister is the CEO of ClassBook.com, which provides schools and universities with an online bookstore presence with special emphasis on independent primary and secondary schools. Prior to becoming the CEO of ClassBook, Tony was an auditor for PricewaterhouseCoopers. He has an MBA from the State University of New York at Albany and double major in accounting and economics from Le Moyne College.

Sramana: Tony, let’s start with your background story. Where did you grow up?

Tony Pfister: I am from Albany, which is in upstate New York. I went to Le Moyne College and graduated with a double major in economics and accounting. >>>

Building a Cross-Border e-Commerce Success Selling to Russia: Bay.Ru CEO Aaron Block (Part 1)

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

Aaron Block is the CEO of Bay.ru, the first cross-border e-commerce business in Russia and the fastest growing shopping site in Russia. Bay.ru’s growth has been powered by affiliate partnerships with eBay and Amazon which provides Bay.ru an integrated product catalog in a wide range of categories. Prior to Bay.ru he worked in management positions at the commercial real estate firm Cushman and Wakefield. He graduated from the University of Illinois after studying urban and regional planning.

Sramana: Aaron, let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? What kind of background leads up to the Bay.ru story?

Aaron Block: I was born and raised in Chicago. I studied urban and regional planning at the University of Illinois. I started my career in commercial real estate with Cushman and Wakefield, the third largest global real estate firm in the world. >>>

Gaps in Analytics: Jon Kondo, CEO of Host Analytics (Part 1)

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

Jon Kondo is the CEO of Host Analytics, a provider of cloud-based analytics and business intelligence tools. Prior to serving as the CEO at Host Analytics, Jon was North American Group Vice President at Oracle where he was responsible for 200+ people and all EPM revenue. Prior to Oracle, he had full P&L responsibility for the Americas Field Organization at Hyperion. Jon managed Hyperion’s push into the analytics space as the global head of BI. He began his career as a sales intern with IBM,  holds an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management and a BA in Economics from UC Santa Barbara

Sramana: Jon, let’s go back to the beginning of your personal story. Tell me where you are from, where you grew up, and your story leading up to Host Analytics.

Jon Kondo: I was born in New York and grew up in Connecticut. My dad moved our family out to Southern California in the early 1970s. He was an aerospace engineer and moved for a job opportunity. >>>

Bootstrapping E-Commerce to 16 Million: Valerie Holstein, CEO of Cableorganizer.com (Part 1)

Valerie Holstein is co-founder, president and CEO of CableOrganizer.com, now among the world’s leading purveyors of cable and wire management-related products. Prior to co-founding CableOrganizer.com in 2002,  Holstein served as assistant drafting engineer at Buchanan Screens, a major fabricator of screen enclosures in South Florida. Prior to this, from 2000 to 2001, Holstein served as an office manager for Transeastern Properties, a large home-building company in Florida.

Sramana: Valerie, let’s start with your background. Where were you born, and where did you grow up? What was the path you took to arrive here today?

Valerie Holstein: I was born in Paris, France. I studied there until it was time to go to college. I decided to attend college in the United States because I wanted to improve my English, and I wanted to take a break from the French academic format. >>>