A Journey into Personalized Luxury Fashion: Editorialist YX CEO Rafael Ortiz (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Is there also a special category of boutiques or designers? I have a very good friend whom I hired out of Bergdorf Goodman in 1999 to be my VP of Merchandising – Bruce Pask. His partner is Donald Dean who’s a couture designer. He has a ready-to-wear line, but he’s also very much a custom designer.

What category of designers do you work with? Where do you get these designers? I found great small designers when I traveled. Is that something that can be accessed?

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services to an Awesome Business Model

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

We’ve shared many Bootstrapping Using Services case studies with you here, as well as in the book on that topic. Inspyrus Founder CEO Nilay Banker’s story is particularly interesting because of the absolutely awesome business model that Nilay and his team had implemented by the time we spoke in 2017. Read on!

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

Nilay Banker: I’m from India, born and brought up in Ahmedabad, which used to be a sleepy town when I was born and growing up. It has now blossomed into a sprawling metro. It’s one of the five largest cities in India. I had a very interesting childhood. I grew up in a family of professionals. My father is an architect. My mother is a doctor. Pretty much, every person in my family is a professional with very few people who are not doctors. I consider myself a black sheep in the family.

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Cloud Stocks: Veeva Believes R&D Segment Will Deliver under Economic Uncertainty

According to a recent report, the global healthcare cloud infrastructure market is estimated to grow at 16% CAGR from $48.1 billion in 2021 till 2030. The growth will be driven by the continuing trend of digitalization of healthcare, the integration of advanced AI/ML algorithms, cloud deployment of healthcare systems, and the need to control rising expenditure, inefficient facility management, and overburdened systems. Veeva (NYSE: VEEV) recently announced its quarterly results that beat analyst estimates. Affected by global economic conditions, its outlook failed to meet market expectations.

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September 15 – 590th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 590th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, September 15, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 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!

589th Roundtable Recording

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

Roundtable Recap: September 8 – Africa Rising

During this week’s roundtable, Francis Gankui Yao from Ghana pitched Herndon Farms, an agriculture venture. We’re seeing more startups from Africa and the trend is expected to build up. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to see Africa find its stride and build a robust startup ecosystem with entrepreneurs, investors, exits and all the related benefits.

To that end, if you are an investor working on African tech startups, please feel free to reach out to us to be featured on our roundtable talk-show.

Entrepreneurs, of course, are welcome to come talk to me and pitch at the weekly roundtables.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Mohanjit Jolly, Partner at Iron Pillar (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Why did you make the decision of focusing on India-for-the-world?

Mohanjit Jolly: One of the reasons is I’m sitting in Palo Alto. I don’t have my finger on the pulse of what’s going on in India. Having said that, I have colleagues who are in India and the Middle East. They do have their fingers on the pulse. Here are the three reasons why we went down this path for fund two.

A Journey into Personalized Luxury Fashion: Editorialist YX CEO Rafael Ortiz (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: So tell me more about what happened when you launched it?

Rafael Ortiz: The business was an app for digitizing your wardrobe. The thinking was, we would digitize everything in your closet and provide you with styling services. We would create outfits of all the items in your closet and use that as a basis to generate recommendations for what you should then buy. There was a bit of service. We’re styling you as the value-add and then, hopefully, doing great recommendations all in this app.