The Startup Velocity Question: Positioning Drives Exit

There is a commonly held misconception among operators who do not understand positioning: We don’t want to invest in Positioning. We will be selling the company.

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Canadian Brothers Bootstrapping to $40M Exit: Chris Sinkinson, Co-Founder AppArmor (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Now, between when you started with your first client and as you went along, how long did it take you to get to $1 million ARR?

Chris Sinkinson: As I’d mentioned, we charged a one time setup fee at the beginning. That hurt us a little bit. I would say it was around late 2015-2016 when we hit that $1 million ARR. The first million is the toughest.

The Startup Velocity Question: Repeatability Drives Exit

Perhaps you have come to the conclusion that you will not seek further funding.

Instead, you will look for an Exit. 

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Cloud Stocks: Analysis of ServiceNow’s Raytion Acquisition

Earlier last week, ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) reported its second quarter results that soared past market expectations. The impressive performance and outlook sent the stock climbing 13% in the after-hours trading session.

Canadian Brothers Bootstrapping to $40M Exit: Chris Sinkinson, Co-Founder AppArmor (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Double click down on pricing. Now that you are getting these inbound leads and it sounds like you are not having too much difficulty closing the accounts, what’s the pricing?

Chris Sinkinson: We did start increasing pricing, but we were doing it wrong. We were charging an upfront setup fee and then a very small recurring fee for maintenance.

The Startup Velocity Question: Repeatability Drives Fundability

Founder-led sales is acceptable for the Seed round.

It is NOT acceptable for Series A or beyond.

At the minimum, you need a Repeatability Hypothesis to raise a sizable venture round.

Canadian Brothers Bootstrapping to $40M Exit: Chris Sinkinson, Co-Founder AppArmor (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the timeline for when all this is happening? When did you start developing? When did you get it out there? When did you get this endorsement and this opportunity to be celebrated in front of all these universities? What is the timeline of when all this is happening?

Canadian Brothers Bootstrapping to $40M Exit: Chris Sinkinson, Co-Founder AppArmor (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: So you didn’t need to use the Twilio API or anything. It was getting the data straight directly off the smartphone.

Chris Sinkinson: Yes. The smartphone geolocation data has latitude and longitude that we would send to a web-based dashboard. The campus security team had a map that showed a pin of where the call was coming from. While you were on the call, it would update that location. So if you were moving, that pin would move and then they were able to relay that to their response team.