Best of Bootstrapping: Student Entrepreneurs Bootstrapped an E-Commerce Company to $19M

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

We’ve seen a real trend of zero-logistics e-commerce businesses scaling phenomenally well. Read Wrist-Band Founder CEO Azim Makanojiya’s experience up to when we spoke in 2014.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of educational path did you follow?

Azim Makanojiya:I am from India. My parents shifted from a village to Mumbai city for better opportunities. That’s where I was born. My father came to the US around 1984. My mom was still back there in India. Within two years, we came to Houston and settled down here. I was about a year old then.

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Featured Videos

From Developer to Entrepreneur: A Guide to Bootstrapping and Startup Creation

Millions of developers sit at their computers daydreaming about running their own company and making a difference in the world. They may even have fantastic ideas, but because they know nothing about business creation, they do not know how to turn ideas into a real company. 

The developer-to-entrepreneur way is not an easy one, but it can be done. It has been done repeatedly. At 1Mby1M, we specialize in helping developers make this transition effectively and successfully. 

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Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Iterate CTO Brian Sathianathan (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: These use cases that you discussed, are all these use cases that you found yourself and are selling directly?

Brian Sathianathan: Absolutely.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down on the first use case – gas station loyalty program. Who built the solution?

Video FAQs

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Book E-commerce Business

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

When we spoke in 2014, BookPal Founder CEO Tony DiCostanzo had identified a gap in the book business and had built a thriving company. Let’s learn the how, what, and why of it.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised?

Tony DiCostanzo: I was born in Anchorage, Alaska. Shortly after turning two, I moved up to Nome, Alaska – from a small city to an even smaller village of 3,000 people. We lived there through the sixth grade and then moved back to Anchorage through most of high school. I ended up spending a couple of years in Washington State but found that California was more of my natural habitat. I came down to go to school at Pepperdine University and met my wife who was from southern California. It was a natural fit to stay here and be close to her family. That was what drove us to the Orange County area.

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Cloud Stocks: DocuSign is Building on AI and Self Serve Capabilities

According to a recent report, the global digital signature market is expected to grow at 35% CAGR to $48.4 billion by 2030. DocuSign (Nasdaq: DOCU) recently announced its fourth quarter results that surpassed market expectations.

Use Bootstrapping with Services to Increase Your Probability of Fund Raising

Raising funding for startups in Silicon Valley is a low probability game. Fewer than 1% who try actually succeed.

Outside the Valley, the startup ecosystems are mostly immature, and the probability gets even lower.

The bar to raise seed funding is getting higher and higher. Seed investors are mostly operating as growth investors, expecting that the entrepreneur will somehow manage to bridge the gap and bring a concept to realization. In fact, what these investors really want is to invest in businesses that have traction, not just validation.

In short, they want to come to the rescue of victory.

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Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Iterate CTO Brian Sathianathan (Part 1)

In this interview, we explore the priorities of enterprise decision makers through the lens of an AI platform vendor.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing the audience to yourself as well as to Iterate.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped CloudSense with Services on Force.com

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

When had this conversation in 2014, the Force.com platform – now Salesforce Platform – was a great bootstrapping device for entrepreneurs. Read how Co-founder CTO Alex Fuller and Co-founder CEO Richard Britton bootstrapped CloudSense to a sizable product company on the platform.

Sramana: Alex, let’s start with your personal journey. Where were you born and raised? What are the roots of your entrepreneurial story?

Alex Fuller: I was born in Wimbledon in the UK where the tennis championship is held. My educational background was not focused on technology. I studied classics at Oxford University, which focused on Latin, Greek, and Linguistics. Before that, I had already acquired an interest in technology. I got into computing as a child when I was 12 years old. I had a keen interest in computing throughout my school years.

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