Digital Nomad Building a $5M+ E-Commerce Business: IntelligentLabs CEO Rus Hughes (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get to a million dollars in revenue?

Rus Hughes: Two and a half years.

Sramana Mitra: What was your inventory strategy during this period? Did you have to finance inventory?

Rus Hughes: We were doing it organically. I kept my cost of living super low. We didn’t take money from the company until 2017.

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Roundtable Recap: April 13 – Startup Methodology Exists, Use It

During this week’s roundtable, we worked with three entrepreneurs. In advising them, I keep running into the phenomenon of reinventing the wheel and not using existing proven methodology and frameworks.

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First up, we had Barnali Ghatak from Kolkata, India, pitch Milk e-Taster, a technology for testing food contamination.

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Next, we had Reagan Bonlie from Rochester, New York, pitching Nudge, a financial planning software for banks to service their customers.

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1Mby1M Premium member Pankaj Kumar from Menlo Park, California, then pitched Lab.computer and its TAM model.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Developer Entrepreneur Bootstrapped to $20M

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

Numerous developers around the world are turning into successful entrepreneurs. NLP Cloud Founder CTO Julien Salinas provides a textbook case study of a brilliant journey that is a highly repeatable blueprint to follow.

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

Julien Salinas: I’m French. I live in France. I’m not located in the French Alps. I have a double degree in both business and engineering, especially computer science. I graduated 15 years ago. I initially started working as a consultant and doing product marketing. I was not very happy in my job.

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Teamwork.com Founder CEO Peter Coppinger has led a terrific vertical cloud business from Ireland and now runs a global SaaS company that is kicking ass.

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

Peter Coppinger: I’m the CEO of Teamwork.com. We are based in Ireland, but we have customers all over the world. I was born in West Cork, Ireland. At a young age, I was very inspired by the likes of Bill Gates. I couldn’t wait to get to college to get going. I thought I’d end up in the States. Somehow, I’m still in Ireland, but we do have a global footprint. I spend a lot of time in the States visiting customers.

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604th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 604th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, April 13, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

Digital Nomad Building a $5M+ E-Commerce Business: IntelligentLabs CEO Rus Hughes (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Who was this business partner? How did you become business partners?

Rus Hughes: I knew him when I was living in Brighton. He discovered a business model of how to market products online. He wasn’t sure what product to market. Given that we were both into health and fitness, we thought we’d start a supplement brand to launch supplements for athletes and weightlifters.

Sramana Mitra: What happens next? What form does this take?

604th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting in 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 604th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, April 13, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!