Best of Bootstrapping: What Should Tech Startups Do to Raise Seed Capital in 2022?

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

In general, Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later is the best strategy. You need to be ready to raise money.

If you decide to raise money, I strongly suggest you read the 1Mby1M Seed Capital series of interviews on our blog ASAP. We’ve profiled investor after investor to understand their investment thesis. You need to get in their heads and get a sense of what they’re looking for, especially if you’ve never raised money before.

Remember, Investors are looking to multiply the money that they put into startups.

A bit more sophisticated way to think about it is to ask the question: Multiply by how much? 2X? 3X? 5X? 10X? 20X?

This question determines the strategies of what they’re looking to do:

• Look for Unicorns (build companies with billion dollar market caps): Go from 0 to $100M in revenue in 5–7 years.
• Look for early exits (sell capital efficient startups and make a lower multiple, but nonetheless, have a successful outcome). Bootstrapping to an Exit is a strategy that this kind of investors love. There are ways of playing this game that are somewhat different from the regular Unicorn pursuit scenario.

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594th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 594th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, October 27, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

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Today’s 594th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, October 27, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

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Cloud Stocks: Confluent Targets Growth Through Partner Network

The global application infrastructure middleware market is expected to grow at 10% CAGR from $47.5 billion in 2021 to reach $83.1 billion by 2027. Confluent is a leading data streaming platform provider in the industry. It recently reports its quarterly results that surpassed market expectations.

Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Movius CEO Ananth Siva (Part 1)

Movius is doing something very interesting in the Cloud-based Communication space to decouple the phone number of an employee from the device and the number it is attached to. You will encounter the use cases and the rationale in this interview. Cool stuff!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning and introduce you to our audience.

Bootstrapping Using Services from The Netherlands to a $300M+ Exit: Quintiq and ActiVote Founder Victor Allis (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What kind of companies were these seven companies that you invited? Were they logistics companies?

Victor Allis: One was in the Rotterdam harbor; they unloaded ships. They told us that it’s a unique process and there was no product that could handle that. Then there was another one. It was a copper factory. We said that our product is so flexible that, no matter how crazy your process is, it will fit in our software. That was true. That was the unique thing. We made very flexible software.

Cloud Stocks: Analysis of IBM’s Recent Dialexa and Databand.ai Acquisitions

Earlier last week, IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced its third quarter results that outpaced market expectations. Under the leadership of Arvind Krishna, IBM has been focused on growing through acquisitions. It continued that mandate this quarter with two additional acquisitions.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services from Sweden

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

European entrepreneurs often bootstrap using services successfully. The chasing of investors from the get go is less prevalent on the other side of the Atlantic, although this obsession from Silicon Valley has traveled to all corners of the world now. Dapresy Founder Tobi Andersson and CEO Rudy Nadilo shared their journey in 2016, when they had crossed $7 million in annual revenue with minimal outside financing.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. It sounds like, Tobi, you’re the founder. Maybe, we’ll start with you and let’s go back to the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Tobi Andersson: I was born in Sweden, in the Swedish countryside. Very early on in my life, I decided that one day I would like to earn the money to have the opportunity to buy a really big farm. That has always been my vision – to create something that, on one hand, can give me money but on the other hand, I can create opportunities for people to develop. I’m very much like HR focused on life. I would like everyone an opportunity to feel that they have a good life.

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