Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Through Massive Challenges to $15M

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

When you run a business over a long period of time, technology changes create massive challenges. When we spoke in 2016, CEO David Braun had navigated TemplateMonster through several of these. In 2019, David became a Member of Parliament in the Ukraine.

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 circumstances?

David Braun: I’m from Georgia – the former USSR country. I’ve lived there until I turned 11. In 1992, Russia initiated the war in Georgia. We were a very wealthy family. We had to drop everything we had – house, apartments, cars, and so on. We just moved in one day with just the clothes we were wearing. I still have my shorts in which I had to run away. That’s all we had to start.

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Roundtable Recap: July 13 – Fail Fast, Try Again

During this week’s roundtable, we had two discussions with startups in the early stages.

InfiNET

First up, we had Ean Mikale from Colorado Springs, Colorado, pitch InfiNET, a Quantum hosting service. My guidance was to adjust the positioning.

Anaitik

Next, we had Hritik Sharma from Chandigarh, India, pitch Anaitik, a fast turnaround custom T-shirt e-commerce venture. My guidance was to try the marketing ideas he discussed, but if they fail, pivot quickly. Fail fast, in other words.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Niche E-Commerce Business to $54M and Exit

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

Dara Greaney bootstrapped BuyAutoParts to $54 million in profitable revenue and sold the company to private equity. Yet another story of success in the niche e-commerce domain.

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

Dara Greaney: I was born and raised in Ventura, California. I was the first one in my family to be born in the US. My family is all Irish. My grandfather got a visa and came to New York. My father immigrated in ’78 and I was born that year. I’m a first-generation American. I went to school in Ventura. I enjoyed beach, surfing, and soccer. I was always fascinated by technology and marketing. I went to University of San Diego for undergraduate studies. I got a degree in Marketing and Finance there. Then I went to San Diego State’s entrepreneurship school and graduated there in 2002. At that time, I did a startup with an e-commerce company that quickly got bought by a bigger company, but I didn’t want to move to Chicago.

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611th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 611th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, July 13, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. MEETING NUMBER: 2552 149 0830 PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

611th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting in 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 611th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, July 13, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. MEETING NUMBER: 2552 149 0830 PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

Ukrainian Entrepreneur Bootstrapped with a Paycheck to $7M ARR: Nikita Sherbina, CEO of AIScreen (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Was it just you and your Ukrainian developers at this point?

Nikita Sherbina: No. One was a developer and the other was a designer. I’m the Product Sanager, Sales. One guy was building it. Another guy was designing it. I was trying to build a sales team and thinking about different features. If you have a couple of people, you can do a lot. I don’t think you even need a good developer. You need to solve before you build.

Best of Bootstrapping: Co-founders Bootstrapped First, Raised $22M Later

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

Here is yet another story of a high-growth SaaS company that was bootstrapped first. When I spoke with RJMetrics Co-founder Robert Moore in 2016, the company had gone on to raise $22 million. RJMetrics was acquired by Magento and is now part of Adobe Commerce Cloud.

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

Robert Moore: I was born in Annapolis, Maryland but actually grew up and spent the majority of my childhood in a town called Glassboro, New Jersey, which is in southern New Jersey. My journey really begins in high school where I started my first business and really fell in love with entrepreneurship. Everything grew out of that.

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Ukrainian Entrepreneur Bootstrapped with a Paycheck to $7M ARR: Nikita Sherbina, CEO of AIScreen (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How did you get your first customer? It sounds like you had a personal experience as well as observed experience of identifying the problem. How did you get to the first customer?

Nikita Sherbina: We outsource sales people and back in my country, we educate them. We educate those sales reps how to gather emails from LinkedIn. You go to Google Maps. You search 100 different locations with restaurants. You schedule those with your offer. You get a response.