The Startup Velocity Question: Linear vs. Exponential Growth

Since this series was published, I have had many conversations with friends in the industry who have added to the issues on the table.

In particular, one that caught my attention is the issue of solid companies that have achieved $10M, $20M, $50M in revenue, close to breakeven, but not necessarily growing at an exponential pace. In some instances, market shifts have caused revenues to flatten or even decline.

Featured Videos

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped an Online Education Company

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

Tod Browndorf, CEO of Coggno, has built an interesting online education company focused on specific niche course types. Read on to learn more from our conversation in 2016.

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

Tod Browndorf: Wow! We’re really going way back. I’m originally from the east coast. I was born in South Carolina but was raised in New York and New Jersey for most of my life. I lost my father when I was 10 and a half years old. I started working very early in life. He was in the manufacturing business. I started working early through school. I travelled the world pretty extensively. I lived in Australia for quite a while. I lived in the Middle East and eventually started my career in Finance. I started off as a trader on Wall Street, then later here in San Francisco.

>>>

Cloud Stocks: Amazon Sees Momentum on AI Front

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) recently announced its first-quarter results that surpassed market expectations. Its stock hit a 52-week high following its result announcement.

Video FAQs

Building a Generative AI Venture from Portugal: João Aroso, CEO of Leadzai (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Now, do you also do the A/B testing on landing page optimization and things like that? Because that would be part of your lead generation process, right?

João Aroso: That’s a very clever question and a part of our roadmap because that obviously affects the end result. However, currently we rely only on the customer’s landing page.

Sramana Mitra: Where is the lead collected? Is it collected on the customer’s website?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $15M in 3 Years

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

Extraordinarily tight, disciplined strategy and execution has enabled Connatix Founder CEO David Kashak to build a tremendously fast growing company with a small team. A lot to learn from our conversation in 2016.

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?

David Kashak: I was born in Israel. I grew up in Israel and studied engineering at Tel Aviv University. After studying, I started as a programmer in a cyber security company in Israel. At one point, they offered to relocate me to New York. That offer was very interesting because I wanted to get more exposure to business. I moved to New York.

>>>

Building a Generative AI Venture from Portugal: João Aroso, CEO of Leadzai (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How do you do your own lead generation? Can you walk me through  a use case and use your own situation to explain how your technology works? How you do your own lead generation using your technology?

Building a Generative AI Venture from Portugal: João Aroso, CEO of Leadzai (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: At the point at which this switch is happening, what are the dynamics of the company? Do you have customers? Are you still operating with that 1.5M in financing?

João Aroso: We’re still operating with the 1.5M in financing, but we’re starting a new fundraise. We have some early customers in Portugal and Italy. We were trying to figure out where to go in terms of differentiation when we realized that with GPT-3, we wouldn’t be scalable. So, we were trying to figure out where we wanted to go in that moment. That’s when we realized from a business standpoint that the only thing that matters to our end customer is what business the campaign is generating.

Catching Up On Readings: Data and Analytics Trends 2024

This report from Gartner identifies the top data and analytics trends for 2024 that emphasize AI’s strategic impact and the need for trust in data. For the last fortnight’s posts, click on the paragraph links.