Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Software Company to Global Scale

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

This is a fascinating story from 2016 of a Ukrainian entrepreneur bootstrapping her CRM Software company to global scale. We’re thrilled to bring you Creatio (formerly BPMOnline) Founder CEO Katherine Kostereva’s inspiring and super intelligent entrepreneurial journey.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get going. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? Let’s go to the very beginning of your personal journey.

Katherine Kostereva: I was born in Ukraine. Since childhood, I’ve been traveling a lot and visited many countries worldwide. I graduated in 1999 with a Bachelors in Computer Science. Shortly after that, I got my MBA. Even from high school, I was obsessed with technology. I was thinking of the ways to transform business through technology. Technology has always attracted me.

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Building a Global ERP Company from Estonia: Katana CEO Kristjan Vilosius (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: That gap was obvious when you decided to position into the Shopify ecosystem. You’d already found that gap, right?

Kristjan Vilosius: Yes. Well, we’d found that when we founded the company. By the time we had finished our basic prototype, we realized that the opportunity is there.

Sramana Mitra: How much was the Series A?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped and Managed an Excellent Pivot

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

In 2021, Oomnitza Co-founder CEO Arthur Lozinski spoke with me about an excellent pivot that is quite enlightening.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?

Arthur Lozinski: Both my parents were from the Soviet Union. I was born in the Soviet Union in a country called Latvia. It was in 1989 right before the wall fell. Both my parents grew up in the Soviet Union. There is a quote by Napoleon Bonaparte that says, “If you want to understand a man, you have to understand where he was in his 20s.” My parents grew up in communist Russia and my upbringing was influenced by that. Education was really important. I grew up in Germany. My parents emigrated to Germany when I was a small child and then we moved to the Silicon Valley just before high school.

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Video FAQs

Building a Global ERP Company from Estonia: Katana CEO Kristjan Vilosius (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Okay. Now, during these two years, tell me about the pricing model and the revenue. What was happening? What was the market accepting as your pricing model? What were you able to sell at and how was that adding up to your ARR, MRR?

Catching Up On Readings: State of Digital Health Q1’24

This report from CB Insights provides insights into the state of the digital health industry. Digital health funding grew 48% q-o-q in the quarter driven by $100M+ funding for biotech startups leveraging AI. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Building a Global ERP Company from Estonia: Katana CEO Kristjan Vilosius (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: When you first started getting into the Shopify ecosystem, was Shopify’s marketplace effective in getting you in there? Were you able to put in an app in the Shopify app store to get into that market?

Kristjan Vilosius: We did put up an app in the Shopify App Store. That is how we launched back in 2018. Back then we were nothing more but just an inventory and manufacturing app for Shopify merchants who have in-house manufacturing, which is just a subsegment of all the Shopify customers.

Building a Global ERP Company from Estonia: Katana CEO Kristjan Vilosius (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The entrenched competitors are heavy duty. So that’s my next question. What did you do positioning-wise and go-to-market strategy-wise? So that’s where we’re going to spend most of our time now, on what you are doing, on how did you break in and what was the positioning? How did you navigate the market?

Kristjan Vilosius: I think how we started and how we got into the market was a very important part of our journey. So I’m happy to expand on that.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped First, Raised Money and Exited

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

“My journey was as unexceptional as you can imagine,” says Rukkus Founder CEO Manick Bhan, in describing how he got to $1 million annual revenue rate in transactions before raising financing. He shared the whole story with me in 2021. Rukkus was acquired in 2018.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by going back to your very beginnings. I want to hear about where you were born, raised, and in what kind of background.

Manick Bhan: Both my parents come from Kashmir. They raised me in Baltimore, Maryland. That’s where I was born. I’ve grown up mostly in the United States. In the very early days, I liked to take things apart. When I was nine, they bought me this bicycle. The first thing I did was I opened the whole thing up. I took out all the screws and basically dismantled the beautiful bike. They were a little horrified about it because it was a birthday present. This has been pretty constant in my life. I like to take things apart and figure out how they work.

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