Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping a Second Data Venture

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

In 2014, we covered John Wallace’s entrepreneur journey with DataSong, a bootstrapped venture that achieved a successful exit. LiftLab is his second company, and he is applying the same rigorous, lean, disciplined approach.

Sramana Mitra: John, welcome to the show again. It looks like you’re up to a new adventure. So, tell us about it.

John Wallace: I’ve been fortunate to be building LiftLab for the past five years. The team had built a company with me called DataSong, which, you covered. I feel very honored and fortunate to be a second time attendee on one of these interviews.

Something unique I’ll share about us is that, when we took some time off from DataSong after its acquisition, a couple of my colleagues had gotten back together and they were trying to figure out what they wanted to build next and I had shared an idea with them. I actually came back and rejoined the old team. And that idea was the beginning of LiftLab.

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Featured Videos

May 2 – 638th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 638th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, May 2, 2024, at 8 a.m. PDT / 11 a.m. EDT / 5 p.m. CEST / 8:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!

Bringing a Generative AI Product to Market: RJ Talyor, Founder CEO, Backstroke and Pattern89 (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Can you double-click down and talk about your validation process in this company, given what you experienced in the previous

RJ Talyor: One thing that I’ve done is structure contracts. I found that everybody loves to be cheerleaders for startups, but ultimately, startups are measured by revenue. We have structured all of our engagements with these early customers around revenue, meaning if we’re gonna work together, you are committing to paying us for that.

Video FAQs

Catching Up On Readings: Global IPO Trends Q1 2024

This report from Ernst & Young analyzes the trends in the global IPO market for the first quarter of 2024. The Americas and EMEIA regions are looking up but the APAC region is plunging. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Colors: Blocks I

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Blocks I

Blocks 1 | Sramana Mitra, 2022 | Watercolor, Pastel, Ink | 8  x 8, On Paper

Bringing a Generative AI Product to Market: RJ Talyor, Founder CEO, Backstroke and Pattern89 (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Very good. So, what is the genesis of the new company?

RJ Talyor: Well, when we were purchased, I was playing around with the early versions of the generative text content. With my history in email marketing combined with my background as an English major [it’s really unique in the tech space], I went back to what if we could create unique and performant content that drives actual performance on the email side? So, those are two important adjectives, unique and performant.

Bringing a Generative AI Product to Market: RJ Talyor, Founder CEO, Backstroke and Pattern89 (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra:  So how did you finance all this in the early stages?

RJ Talyor: At Pattern89, we raised money from a few different sources, mostly from Friends and Family/Angels. Then we were backed by High Alpha, which is a venture studio as well as a venture capital firm. They invested in Pattern89, which allowed us to hire the right people and build the machine out.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of numbers are we talking? How much did you raise?

RJ Talyor: In total, we raised $8 million.

637th 1Mby1M Roundtable Recording

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here: