Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Facebook Ads to $5M

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

Facebook gets a tremendous bad rap for its many nefarious side effects. Numerous small businesses, however, have been possible because of Facebook’s incredible Ad engine. Dow Janes Co-founders Laurie-Anne King and Britt Baker have bootstrapped using Facebook ads to over $5M.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What is the story leading up to this? We’ll do Laurie-Anne as well in that mode.

Britt Baker: I was born in Santa Monica, California, and then moved to Idaho when I was five. I was raised in Idaho but did most of my schooling on the East Coast. I went to boarding school, college, and grad school all on the East Coast.

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Featured Videos

Cisco Leverages AI for Hybrid Work Environments

Global networking solutions provider Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) announced its second quarter results that outpaced market expectations. Cisco is focusing on the hybrid workspace by adding AI capabilities into its existing offerings portfolio.

Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Comet ML CEO Gideon Mendels (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Do you go to market as a platform company?

Gideon Mendels: I guess it depends on your definition. The Community Edition plays a big role as individual contributors get excited about it and recognize the value it can bring to them and their team.

Sramana Mitra: I noticed that you are calling it the Community Edition but not an open source product. It is a free product but not open source?

Video FAQs

April Udemy Coupons for Tech Startup Courses

As a part of our aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally, we have packaged our proven 1Mby1M methodology for building technology startups into short courses on Udemy.

In addition to offering you up to 85% off all of our Udemy courses this month, we are introducing three new courses. Each contains informative and inspirational case studies of startups and entrepreneurs who have successfully navigated the Cyber Security, FinTech, and IoT domains:

How to Build a Cyber Security Startup with Sramana Mitra

How to Build a FinTech Startup with Sramana Mitra

How to Build an IoT Startup with Sramana Mitra

Here are the up to 85% off coupon codes for all of our courses on Udemy. These coupons expire on April 30, 2023, so enroll today!

Bootstrapping:

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MAPR2023BTS

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Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Comet ML CEO Gideon Mendels (Part 1)

We’ve covered ML Ops before in interviews such as Arize.

Gideon provides a comprehensive overview of how the space is evolving and the opportunities on the horizon.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to you as well as to Comet.

Catching Up On Readings: Top Cybersecurity Predictions 

This report from Garner explores the future of cyber security with its top eight cyber security predictions for 2023-2024 at the recently held Gartner Security & Risk Management Summit in Sydney. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Colors: Winter Sunset II

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 – Winter Sunset II

Winter Sunset II | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper

April 13 – 604th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 604th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, April 13, 2023, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!