Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Significant Software Company to Exit

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

When we spoke in 2015, Emagine CEO Dave Peters had managed to bootstrap a significant software company from Australia. The focus was on TELCO churn management, and the customer base was primarily Australian, Asian, and African. Read this interview to learn more of the nuances. In September 2017 Emagine was acquired by Comviva.

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

Dave Peters: I’m Australian. I grew up in a little town of 8,000 people, about five hours west of Sydney. It was a farming community and my father was an Anglican minister. That’s a pretty unlikely starting point for an entrepreneur.

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Building a Generative AI Startup to $10M+ with a Virtual Team: Chris Lu, CEO of Copy.ai (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Series A is the last financing round?

Chris Lu: That’s been our last financing.

Sramana Mitra: Talk about your virtual team. You’ve chosen to move to Houston and build a virtual team.

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608th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 608th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, June 15, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. MEETING NUMBER: 2554 766 7804  PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

608th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting in 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 608th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, June 15, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. MEETING NUMBER: 2554 766 7804  PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

New PropTech Startups Course plus June Coupons

In addition to offering you up to 85% off the following Udemy courses this month, we are introducing the new course, PropTech Startup Case Studies with Sramana Mitra. Through this course, we explore our most informative and inspirational case studies of noteworthy startups founded by property and real estate technology entrepreneurs.

These coupons will expire on June 30, 2023, so enroll today!

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Building a Generative AI Startup to $10M+ with a Virtual Team: Chris Lu, CEO of Copy.ai (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of function, it was still operating as a UI to OpenAI.

Chris Lu: Right. The early models were not as easy to use compared to the models today. There was still a good amount of work required to get good results.

Sramana Mitra: With the timing of the development of OpenAI and ChatGPT, you were coming in to a window where all of that wasn’t developed and you were offering usability.

Best of Bootstrapping: Co-founders Bootstrapped with Angel Money

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

Building businesses has become cheaper by several orders of magnitude. When we spoke in 2015, Co-founder Josh Levy and his team took just over $2 million in angel financing, and had built a profitable business in New York. For those entrepreneurs facing the Series A crunch, this is an important story to follow. You will do fine if you have patient angels, and just use their investment to bootstrap to profitability.

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

Josh Levy: I was born in New Jersey. I went to high school in New Jersey. I went to the University of Maryland for college where I got an undergraduate degree in Finance. I also did a minor in entrepreneurship. I now live in Brooklyn. BeenVerified is headquartered in New York City. I’ve been on the East Coast my whole life.

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