Cloud Stocks: Meta Plays with Generative AI Capabilities

Earlier last week, Meta (Nasdaq: META), formerly Facebook, announced its first quarter results that outpaced market expectations. The company continues to invest in its Metaverse initiative, but the results announcement drove the stock up 12% in the after-hours trading session.

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How NOT To Build a Startup: Ned Hill, CEO of Position Imaging (Part 5)

Ned Hill: We’re building a platform that not only could deliver packages for residents and buildings but also send notifications to these residents. We needed to flesh it out before we released it. I took my time. I’m thankful we did. It’s the best system in the world for package management. Working on the platform is also the basis for many other applications like pick-up and drop-off. In New York, you can’t drop it unattended.

Sramana Mitra: How much money went into funding your 12 years of technology development with no revenue?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped First Using Services to Exit

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

Conversocial Co-founder Joshua March first built a digital marketing agency around social media before identifying the product opportunity for Conversocial. Here is our conversation from 2015. Verint acquired Conversocial in 2021.

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

Joshua March: I grew up in a relatively small town in England, a few hours outside of London. It’s called Malvern, Worcestershire. It’s famous for classical music composer Elgar. It has beautiful hills and countryside. It’s a lovely place to grow up but not completely exciting from a business perspective or the perspective of a 16-year-old.

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Video FAQs

How NOT To Build a Startup: Ned Hill, CEO of Position Imaging (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me how you put one foot before the other. Try to tell the story of your lessons from the trenches. Did you have an investment thesis that panned out?

Ned Hill: I had a business plan.

Sramana Mitra: What were you going to do?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a High Growth Startup

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

Minnesota seems to be developing well as a hub for tech startups. With a strong culture of bootstrapping, we’re seeing a lot of entrepreneurs building high growth businesses. Here is my conversation from 2015 with Praful Saklani, Founder and CEO of Pramata.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your personal journey. Tell me a bit about where you were born and raised and in what kind of circumstances.

Praful Saklani: I was actually born in the United Kingdom. My family is from North India. When I was four years old, we moved from the UK to Minneapolis. Throughout that whole process of growing up in Minnesota, I also traveled back to India, at least, once every two years. We’d spend a lot of time with my family there. I would say that I actually grew up both in the US and India. Even when I visit India, I would actually spend time in villages and up in the mountain. It’s a nice broad perspective of a good mid-western upbringing and a good north Indian upbringing too. That’s a bit of a cultural context.

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How NOT To Build a Startup: Ned Hill, CEO of Position Imaging (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: This first company, how long did you do it for?

Ned Hill: It was five years. I was doing that part-time.

Sramana Mitra: You had another job?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped from Pennsylvania to Exit

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

The theme of entrepreneurs building robust companies without outside capital continues with OnSIP Co-founder Mike Oeth’s story from 2015. OnSIP was acquired by an Apollo portfolio company in 2020.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your personal story. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

Mike Oeth: I was born in the MidWest, specifically in Speedway, Indiana. It’s the home of Indianapolis 500. I was very lucky in my early life to have three mentors who helped shape different parts of who I am. First, obviously, is my dad. He is a mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. He’s retired now but he had worked for General Motors. He was designing aircraft engines. He was very supportive when, in the seventh or eighth grade, I wanted to spend the money that I made that summer cutting grass to go and buy a computer. I bought a Ti-99/4A. It was one of the first personal computers out there.

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Cloud Stocks: ServiceNow Leverages AI Capabilities

ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) recently reported its first quarter results that continued to outpace market expectations. Like several others, ServiceNow is also betting on the AI space and integrated several helpful AI tools within the latest release of its platform.