Bootstrapping a RegTech Venture to $20M: PerformLine CEO Alex Baydin (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Once you decided that you wanted to own your own business, what were you going to do?

Alex Baydin: I was working at one of the internet companies that I mentioned. I actually got fired for the first time in my life. I’ve been working since I was 15. I took it really hard.

Sramana Mitra: Why were you fired?

Alex Baydin: The company was trying to get better performance out of a certain group. I was running the lead gen division there. I may have had a different communication style that my boss wasn’t a huge fan of. I just took it really hard. I ended up in the hospital that night. I felt literally sick to my stomach.

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Colors: Out of Africa V

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 – Out of Africa V

Out of Africa V | Sramana Mitra, 2021 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9  x 12, On Paper

Female Entrepreneur Scaling a PropTech Venture with Over $40M in Funding: PunchListUSA CEO Min Alexander (Part 6)

Min Alexander: This business builds one by one. That’s a competitive moat for us. Folks that think they’re going to blast and market, that doesn’t necessarily happen in an industry like ours. It’s taken so long to disrupt it at scale. You need all the components. You need the technology and infrastructure to keep it simple and very accessible. You also need relationship builders who are holding these clients accountable in the markets that we’re in.

We build the brokers. We’ll have transactions that are also consistent. As long as we’re serving the brokers and delighting them with our quality, they’ll keep coming back. Every sales transaction brings two homeowners that we can serve throughout their entire homeownership journey. We have a seller who sold their home and a buyer who bought the home.

Video FAQs

Decacorns: Miro Boomed During the Pandemic

During the pandemic lockdowns, most offices globally shifted to virtual working conditions. The rapid transition led to the adoption of several online collaboration tools with high growth season for virtual meeting and webinar providers. During the recent year, the global restrictions have reduced, and the same companies are seeing a slowdown in growth. According to a recent report, the Collaboration applications market size is expected to grow a modest 2% over the next few years to reach $20.8 billion by 2026. Microsoft remains the leader of the pack with almost 20% market share. But the market is crowded with several other smaller players who are offering similar services. One such player is San Francisco, and Amsterdam-based Miro.

Bootstrapping a RegTech Venture to $20M: PerformLine CEO Alex Baydin (Part 1)

RegTech is emerging to become a category of its own with numerous risk and compliance issues getting addressed by technology solutions. Alex 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?

Female Entrepreneur Scaling a PropTech Venture with Over $40M in Funding: PunchListUSA CEO Min Alexander (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How much have you raised in total so far?

Min Alexander: Our Series A round was $39 million. We had targeted $35 million. It got others really excited. We ended up declining other funding. We could have been well over $45 million.

Sramana Mitra: The story was pitched to me as a $5 million-plus company. Do you want to add some color to that?

Will Apple Buy Netflix?

Earlier this week Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) reported its third quarter performance surpassing the market’s forecast. The company reported a net increase in its subscriber base, a first this year. Netflix continues to try alternate revenue monetization models as it taps into a fairly saturated streaming market.

Thought Leaders in Cyber Security: Gryphon CEO John Wu (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit about your company. Is it venture-funded?

John Wu: We’re a customer-funded company. We view our customers as our partners in this. We have done several successful equity crowdfunding rounds in the last few years. We raised over $11 million in past rounds. A lot of it came from our customers who believe in what we’re doing. When you talk about how you’re getting the word out, that’s one of the ways.

Sramana Mitra: Which equity crowdfunding platform did you work on?