Bootstrapping to $3M a month: Prequel CEO Timur Khabirov (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What are some examples of non-paid customer acquisition?

Timur Khabirov: Some celebrity who makes their own content. Let’s talk about viral effect. The first one was BTS. I didn’t know about this band before, but they started using Prequel. When I woke up, we were on the top. The BTS group used Prequel during the Grammys. Twitter was crazy.

Sramana Mitra: That gave you a huge lift.

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Bootstrapping to $3M a month: Prequel CEO Timur Khabirov (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about influencer marketing. What did you do?

Timur Khabirov: Influencer marketing is a bit complicated. If you’re doing user acquisition, it’s a clear traffic. You understand your consumers. You understand the conversion rate. With influencer marketing, it’s not that easy to manage this.

Sramana Mitra: But it’s worthwhile in your opinion?

Video FAQs

Colors: Vastness, Miniature VI

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 – Vastness, Miniature VI

Vastness, Miniature VI | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper

Colors: Vastness, Miniature V

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 – Vastness, Miniature V

Vastness, Miniature V | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper

Bootstrapping to $3M a month: Prequel CEO Timur Khabirov (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Explain, step by step, how you brought this product to market?

Timur Khabirov: You need to understand what the market needs. We have social media platforms. What do they need? First and foremost, it has to be a time saver. Then, it has to be easy.

Sramana Mitra: Are we talking about a B2C product?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Web Hosting Company to $60M

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

When we spoke in 2014, Christopher Aker, Founder of Linode, had already had many opportunities to raise money along the way while bootstrapping to a $60 million revenue level. Find out why he chose not to. Linode was acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2022.

Sramana: Chris, let’s start with the beginning of your story. Tell me where you are from and set the stage for your entrepreneurial journey.

Christopher Aker: I was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. We lived on the main land off of a coastal barrier island. I had a traditional American, South Jersey coastal upbringing. We had a lot of summer jobs and a huge amount of people would flock to our town in the summer to enjoy the beach.

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602nd 1Mby1M Roundtable Recording

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here: