Earlier last week, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) announced its fourth-quarter results that surpassed market expectations. With Amazon’s recently launched product upgrades and services, growth in revenue and earnings is expected to continue.
>>>Sramana Mitra: What were the components of the full authentication?
Deepak Gupta: We did a user name and password with social login. We were managing the full login and registration. Pretty much the whole element of login, registration, forgot password, and user activation.
Sramana Mitra: Were you still just within the Drupal ecosystem?
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Dean A. Stoecker is Executive Chairman and founding partner of Alteryx, a leading software developer and a pioneer of agile business intelligence technology with analytics. We had this conversation in 2012 when Dean was CEO.
Sramana: Dean, let’s start at the beginning of your personal story. What is the context for your entrepreneurial journey? Where are you from?
Dean Stoecker: I grew up in a family business in Colorado. I would sit around the table every day and hear about the trials and excitements of owning a business. I went to school at the University of Colorado. I had the opportunity to travel the world through a program called Semester at Sea. That was where I got the idea that I wanted to have my own business. After I graduated, I moved to California and got involved in the information business.
Sramana Mitra: In what timeframe did you zero in on the pricing model?
Deepak Gupta: We did experiments on pricing. After 9 to 12 months, we got to a decent pricing model.
Sramana Mitra: Can you talk about those experiments? What was working and not working?
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Bootstrapping using a paycheck is still a real trend. Here’s the case study of Axosoft shared by Founder Hamid Shojaee in 2014. The company was purchased in 2020 by Resurgens Technology Partners.
Sramana Mitra: Hamid, tell us a bit about yourself. Where were you born and raised and in what kind of background?
Hamid Shojaee: I was born and raised in Iran. I was 10 years old when we moved to the United States.
Sramana Mitra: What did you get done in those few months when you still had the job?
Deepak Gupta: At the beginning, there was a little hesitation whether the product was going to work. As soon as we launched, we started getting customers. Customers started asking questions. In those few months, I saw that there is a big need for this product.
>>>If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
We maintain that one of the best ways to identify complex problems worth solving inside enterprises is by offering services to them, thereby gaining exposure to the domain. DataSong is yet another case in point. After I spoke with Founder John Wallace, DataSong was acquired by MarketShare in 2015.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning. Where are you from? What kind of a backstory leads up to the entrepreneurial story?
John Wallace: I grew up in the South from a pretty modest background.
Entrepreneurs are invited to the 599th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, February 9, 2023, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 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!