Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Content Marketing Company First

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

Diego Gomes, CEO Co-founder of Rock Content, had built a terrific content marketing company from Brazil when we spoke in 2020. He bootstrapped first, raised money later, and had then acquired a sizable US company to scale. Excellent story!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Tell me about your background. Where are you from? Where were you raised?

Diego Gomes: I am from Brazil. I lived most of my life in Belo Horizonte. I started our company Rock Content around seven years ago with two co-founders, Edmar Ferreira and Vitor Pecanha.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Fast Growth Company with Services

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

Gurman Hundal, Co-founder of MiQ, had bootstrapped a fast growth company using services when we spoke in 2016. Read about his impressive journey.

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?

Gurman Hundal: I was born in England in a town about 30 miles from London. My family is from the northern state of Punjab in India. Even though I was born in England, I couldn’t speak English till I was about six years old. I have a British-Indian upbringing. My parents owned their own shoe shop in a shopping mall near where we live. I got an early exposure to family-run organizations. I went through the educational system within England. I went to University of Kingston where I studied Business. It was there where I started my career.

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Catching Up On Readings: US IPOs Q1’24

This feature from Renaissance Capital looks at upcoming IPOs in the week ahead that signals the end of the first quarter of 2024. Q1 is about to end with some of the first large tech IPOs including Reddit and Astera Labs. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a 100% Virtual Business from Ireland

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

Shane Evans is Co-founder of Scrapinghub, now known as Zyte, a virtual team-based business from Ireland. When we spoke in 2016, the company had 5M Euro in revenue, 130 employees in 43 countries and operated 100% virtually. Very interesting view into a different part of the world. You can listen to the podcast of our interview here.

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?

Shane Evans: I was actually born in the UK. Both of my parents worked at Heathrow. My father is British but my mother was Irish. I think their involvement and love for travel had an impact on me. I came to Ireland when I was two years old and that’s where I grew up.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped an AdTech Company from France

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

When we spoke in 2016, BidMotion Founder Daniel Nathan had built a really cool company based in Paris. Daniel is now Founder and CEO of Homa Games.

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?

Daniel Nathan: I was born very close to Paris. I was born in 1988. My parents were not entrepreneurs, but I always wanted to create my own business. I started my first company when I was pretty young. Our city was not such a great city to live in. To go to Paris, you had to take a train. It was pretty dangerous to take that train.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services to $12M and an Exit

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

You know that we believe in the Bootstrapping Using Services methodology quite firmly. Here is Square Root Founder Chris Taylor’s story from 2016 – a great example of how and why bootstrapping using services works. In 2021, CDK Global acquired Square Root for $25 million.

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?

Chris Taylor: I grew up in rural West Virginia. You won’t meet a lot of entrepreneurs out of West Virginia. When I was four, my father passed away, so my brother and I were raised by our mother. She did a fantastic job. My brother is also another entrepreneur. In college, I went to Carnegie-Mellon and studied Computer Science, Psychology, and Mathematics.

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March Tech Startup Course Coupons and New Validation Course

This month we are introducing a new course, Validation for Tech Startups by Sramana Mitra [Coupon Code: TRY1MBY1MMAR2024VAL]. Whether your sights are set on B2C or B2B markets, mastering validation is paramount, particularly for tech startups. Understanding the intricacies of customer needs and preferences is the cornerstone of success. You will learn that while development is crucial for testing ideas, prioritizing validation over technology development is the key to gaining traction in the market.

We have packaged our proven 1Mby1M methodology for building technology startups into many short courses on Udemy as part of our aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally.

For the month of March we are offering you up to 85% off the following courses as well.

All of these coupons will expire on March 31, 2024, so enroll today!

Bootstrapping:

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MMAR2024BTS

Bootstrapping a Startup with a Paycheck with Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MMAR2024PAY

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services First from London

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

Rich Waldron, Co-founder and CEO of Tray.io, was building an authentic tech company from London when we spoke in 2020. While the company could have become a so-called Unicorn by loading up on liquidation preferences, they chose not to do so. Excellent story.

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?

Rich Waldron: I was born in the UK in a place called Southampton, which is right down on the South Coast. Its most famous claim to fame is where the Titanic set off from. I was born there 35 years ago.

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