Catching Up On Readings: State of LLM Developers

This research report from CB Insights explores the key trends in the large language model (LLM) developer landscape including top developers, funding, unicorns, and active investors. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Featured Videos

July 20 – Brainstorming on Eastern India Startup Development Roundtable

During this special program, we will be Brainstorming on Eastern India Startup Development Strategy. If you would like to share your thoughts for a few minutes during this program, please Register Here. We will share ideas and hope to accommodate a variety of perspectives. Be sure to read my series of blogs beforehand: Startup Ecosystem in Kolkata: A Strategy Discussion. All registrants will receive a link to the recording afterwards. There will be no entrepreneur pitches during this program.

Photo by ABHISHEK CHAKRABORTY on Unsplash

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Bootstrapping

Over the course of two years, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy with the aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally. This series of posts aims to help you find the one you need easily and provide you with discount coupons.

Video FAQs

611th 1Mby1M Roundtable Recording

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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.

>>>

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:

>>>

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.

>>>

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!