Netflix Sees Initial Results from Monetization Initiatives

Earlier this week Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) announced its fourth quarter performance that failed to impress the market. The company continues to experiment with several initiatives to drive monetization while investing in content to keep its viewers engaged.

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Bootstrapping with Services at the Cusp of AI and FinTech: Vahe Andonians, Founder of Cognaize (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. You’re doing almost like an AI fintech incubator where you’re doing services projects for large companies. Those are exclusive. The datasets are on their premises. You’re not touching them, but you’re building the models for them. Then you’re taking the knowledge and turning them into SaaS that you take to the midmarket.

Vahe Andonians: It is correct, but not that we’re learning from the data and selling that. We develop our platform and we sell it.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services to a $300M+ Exit

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

Victor Allis bootstrapped Quintiq to $30M, raised funding, and then sold the company for over $300M. ActiVote is his second startup, currently self-funded.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Victor Allis: I was born in the Netherlands to a middle-class family. My dad worked as a plant manager in the aircraft industry. My mom took care of five kids. I was the youngest of five with four sisters. In school, I was the second-best in math in the Netherlands. I took part in competitions. I became a math student with the dream of becoming a math professor.

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Video FAQs

Bootstrapping with Services at the Cusp of AI and FinTech: Vahe Andonians, Founder of Cognaize (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Now we’re in 2017?

Vahe Andonians: 2018.

Sramana Mitra: What problem were you going to solve next?

Vahe Andonians: It all started with Moody’s. They approached me with a problem. The problem was extracting financial PDF. They had identified this as a pain point of the market. They had just created a unit called Moody’s Accelerator which was trying new ideas and products. They approached me along with others and asked us if we can automate it.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services and Piggybacking

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

Mikel Lindsaar has built a services company in Australia and spawned six SaaS products out of it. One of them, StoreConnect, is a terrific Bootstrapping by Piggybacking story on top of Salesforce.com. He has exited four of the apps and expects to grow StoreConnect to $100M+ in revenue.

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?

Mikel Lindsaar: I’m Australian. I was born in Adelaide in South Australia which is the driest state in the driest nation.

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Cloud Stocks: BlackLine Improves Cash Management Offerings Amid Recession Fears

According to a recent report, the global accounting software market is estimated to grow 19% CAGR to reach $47.5 billion by 2028. BlackLine (NASDAQ: BL) announced its fourth quarter results recently that continued to outpace market expectations. The company released products that are aimed at allaying cash related concerns of its customers given the current economic conditions.

Bootstrapping with Services at the Cusp of AI and FinTech: Vahe Andonians, Founder of Cognaize (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What revenue level did you reach with this?

Vahe Andonians: About $8 million. It was difficult. The 2009 to 2012 period was a difficult time for the area we were operating in.

Sramana Mitra: Your clients were the banks and financial service institutions?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a RegTech Venture to $20M

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

RegTech is emerging to become a category of its own with numerous risk and compliance issues getting addressed by technology solutions. PerformLine Founder and CEO Alex Baydin has bootstrapped a wonderful business and is now doing a private equity-driven roll-up within the space.

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?

Alex Baydin: I am the Founder and CEO of PerformLine. I was born in Boston, but shortly thereafter, my family moved to New Jersey in a town called Morristown. I’ve been here quite a large percentage of my life but also traveled and spent some stints outside of this area.

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