Digital signature player DocuSign (Nasdaq: DOCU) recently announced its first quarter results that surpassed market expectations. Earlier this year, DocuSign had announced plans to accelerate its product release and focus on profitability. The recent quarterly results revealed a profitable quarter.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the Dubai business. Why Dubai?
Jason Hayes: Tax. We don’t pay tax over here. We enjoy the most incredible taxation over here. There is no income tax or capital gains tax. That was a big driver for me. I was hugely keen to go into the PropTech area. Dubai has the most enormous real estate market. It looked to be the most incredible place to do the property portal.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
FairWarning Founder Kurt Long has tried different permutations and combinations of bootstrapping, several of them successfully. Listen to his perspective on each of those from when we spoke in 2015. FairWarning was acquired by Imprivata in 2018.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Kurt Long: I was raised in Clearwater, Florida. I grew up in Florida at a very special time where we enjoyed being outside and in the waters. As I grew up, I watched the Apollo missions and other NASA-based missions take off from the Kennedy Space Center, which is on the other coast but you could still see the launches. From a very early age, those made an impression on me that I wanted to participate in innovation and exploration. That’s something that has stayed with me through my whole career. As I went through high school and college, I held on to the dream and even wrote letters to Kennedy Space Center to ask about the Space Center and how it worked.
Today’s 609th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, June 22, 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: 2551 483 3108 PASSWORD: startup All are welcome!
Today’s 609th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, June 22, 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: 2551 483 3108 PASSWORD: startup All are welcome!
Sramana Mitra: One of the keys to building scalable businesses is to operate within guardrails. What you’re pointing out in deciding not to go for any kind of permit is a huge decision. It’s a smart decision. That allows you to move quickly. In the business that you did first versus this business, it’s a different model. Debt financing is the same, but you’re not building as much in the balance sheet.
Jason Hayes: That’s right.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Faisal Husain, CEO of Synechron, is one of those rare entrepreneurs who managed to grow his business with no outside financing to significant scale when we spoke in 2015. We discuss his journey here.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Faisal Husain: My roots are from India, but I was actually born in West Africa in Nigeria. My parents had moved from India to Nigeria in search of jobs and they were in the education field. My father was a principal and my mother was a math teacher. While they were doing their jobs and building their careers in Nigeria, I was born there. I lived in Nigeria for 13 years. At that point, my parents decided to move back home to India. I was then home schooled for about three or four years, and then came to the United States.
Sramana Mitra: What segment were you going after? What kind of price?
Jason Hayes: I started by buying homes around the $300,000 mark. I was looking to go for volume and was trying to spread the risk. Sometimes, we would buy homes that were significantly cheaper and sometimes, we would buy homes that were significantly greater in value. For me, it was all about what the value proposition was.
>>>