Cloud Stocks: DocuSign Focuses on Diversifying Portfolio

Recently eSignature player DocuSign (Nasdaq: DOCU) announced its third quarter results that surpassed market expectations. The company is looking to expand its use cases and diversify its product category to drive growth in the coming quarters.

Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I have a rather different point of view about the definition of good. One Million by One Million has a philosophy that is completely counter to this VC-obsessed philosophy of Silicon Valley. The world has today imported the Valley’s VC obsession. I don’t like it at all.

As far as I’m concerned, a bootstrapped founder who raises a small amount of capital and continues to build a revenue business is a good founder. They may not be fundable at the scale at which large Silicon Valley funds. I’m a huge fan of solid, sustainable businesses.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped from Oklahoma to Exit

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

How often do you hear of a successful entrepreneurship story out of Oklahoma? Well, meet Robin Roberson, Co-founder of WeGoLook. This is our conversation from 2015. WeGoLook was acquired by Crawford & Company in 2017.

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

Robin Roberson: I was born in Oklahoma. I was raised, primarily, on a farm. There were about 12 kids in my class. I didn’t know much about the outside world other than what was there in town. I started my entrepreneurial journey in the second grade making yarn belts on the playground. I was able to talk a few of my friends into making them with me. We had quite the distributorship going with yarn belts until the Principal shut us down. When he asked us to stop making yarn belts, I started making Christmas tree ornaments to sell. He shut that down too.

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Video FAQs

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: There is a Series A gap. There are investors that are doing pre-Series A, but it’s a smaller pool. The Series A investors want to see a lot in place before they’re willing to write a check. How do you see this? This is not specific to your firm. I’m asking you generally as an industry observer. How do you see this resolving?

Some of the trends we are seeing is that some of the pre-seed and seed companies are exiting into companies that have raised a lot of money without trying to raise as much money themselves. They have to find some path either through exit, funding, or becoming profitable.

Catching Up On Readings: The Best Reading of 2022

This feature from The Wall Street Journal looks at some of the ten best books across the genres of fiction, non fiction, science fiction, politics, children’s books, and mystery. It also lists the books read or recommended by literary voices, thinkers, leaders, and tastemakers. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Bhaskar Ghosh, Partner and CTO at 8VC (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Talk a little bit about this company that you invested in from the Freshworks ecosystem. Is it built on the Freshworks stack?

Bhaskar Ghosh: The founders are second-time founders. Their first company, Rocketlane, was acquired by Freshworks. I just want to call something out. We are huge fans of the entrepreneur ecosystem coming out of Freshworks and Zoho, which have revolutionized the B2B SaaS ecosystem of India.

Colors: Skye I

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 – Skye I

Skye I | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper

Colors: Purple Fall

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 – Purple Fall

Purple Fall | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 8  x 8, On Paper