Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped with a Rigorous Data-Driven Approach

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

Wrike Founder Andrew Filev has built a company with a rigorous data-driven approach. Learn how they bootstrapped first, raised money later from our conversation in 2015.

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?

Andrew Filev: I was born in St. Petersburg in Russia. I got interested in computers pretty early. I spent a lot of my childhood playing with computers, building and programming, and designing. I also had a big interest in other sciences as well. I competed in different math, physics, and chemistry competitions.

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Featured Videos

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How do you do that? How do you intervene in reducing infractions?

Jay Chandan: That is by better traffic management at the intersections. We have a traffic management solution which we have built and deployed at a fraction of the cost.

Best of Bootstrapping: Scaled with Angel Money in Canada

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

When we spoke in 2015, Joel Lessem was scaling a profitable company in Toronto called Firmex, and had only spent $4 million in angel money to get to almost $10 million in revenue. Datasite acquired Firmex in 2021.

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

Joel Lessem: I was born in Israel but raised in Toronto from the age of three. I grew up in Toronto.

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Video FAQs

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Is it a product company or a services company?

Jay Chandan: It’s a mix. Today, about 60% of our revenue comes from product and about 40% from services.

Sramana Mitra: What’s in the product?

Smart City Use Cases and Opportunities: Jay Chandan, CEO of Gorilla Technology (Part 1)

Jay talks about Gorilla’s Smart City system integration business that heavily focuses on IoT security, analytics, and workflow. In the end, we discuss open problems that could warrant new entrepreneurs building startups around.

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

New OpenSource Startups Course and July Udemy Course Coupons

We have packaged our proven 1Mby1M methodology for building technology startups into short courses on Udemy as a part of our aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally.

In addition to offering you up to 85% off the following Udemy courses this month, we are introducing the new course, How to Build an OpenSource Startup with Sramana Mitra. Through this course, we explore our most informative and inspirational case studies of noteworthy opensource startups.

These coupons will expire on July 31, 2023, so enroll today!

Bootstrapping:

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MJUL2023BTS

Bootstrapping a Startup with a Paycheck with Sramana Mitra: TRY1MBY1MJUL2023PAY

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Catching Up On Readings: AI and Jobs

This feature by Christopher Mins on The Wall Street Journal looks at how artificial intelligence is automating the knowledge industry and jobs and roles in the software industry.

Business Model Innovation in Digital Health: Bob Allison, Co-Founder of PEAR Health Labs (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What is the financial engineering that makes all this possible?

Bob Allison: They were cash and stock, but mostly stock. We used valuation methodologies and acquired the companies usually in their 100% state, so we didn’t eliminate people and would just buy the tech. We typically bought the people because we thought they were important to delivering expertise.