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 – L’hermitage IV
L’hermitage IV | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8 x 8, On Paper
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 – L’hermitage III
L’hermitage III | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8 x 8, On Paper
Sramana Mitra: What level did you reach in 2019?
Hannah Fastov: In 2019, we did $4 million. Then the pandemic hit.
Sramana Mitra: How did that go?
Hannah Fastov: That was an interesting time for us. We’re selling an on-the-go bag and everybody’s staying home. We just had our shipment come in at the beginning of March 2020. All of our wholesale partners either postponed or cancelled their orders. We had a ton of inventory.
>>>In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
During this week’s roundtable, we discussed two school-driven GTM strategies.
Eduberance
First, Niraj Harlalka in Ahmedabad, India, pitched Eduberance, a vernacular EdTech venture for Tier 2 and 3 cities in India.
My Tailor
Next, we had Davron Williams in Lagos, Nigeria, pitching My Tailor, a fashion marketplace.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) recently reported its first quarter results that failed to impress the market. The miss in the revenue performance and outlook sent the stock falling 9% in the after-hours trading session.
>>>Sramana Mitra: That brings us to end of 2017. What kind of revenues were you tracking at?
Hannah Fastov: Close to a million. At this time, most of our revenue was coming in from our wholesale business but we were doing over $250,000 on our website. When we saw what was working in advertising, then we were able to put a bit more into our advertising and use our profits to reinvest back.
Sramana Mitra: What are the highlights of 2018?
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Over the last decade and more, I’ve had the privilege of working with a large number of bootstrapped entrepreneurs. These include self-financed companies and also modestly capitalized startups that operate in a capital-efficient manner applying the principles of bootstrapping. [You can take our free Bootstrapping Course to review these.]
For our Seed Capital series of podcasts and blog interviews, I’ve interviewed hundreds of investors, especially micro-VCs and angels who are playing in the early stage game.
I’ve asked all of them the following questions: