Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Lawline to $10M

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

Wonderful story from 2020 of how Lawline CEO David Schnurman, an online education entrepreneur, had worked through plateaus and scaled his business over 15 years.

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

David Schnurman: I’m from Brooklyn, New York, an area called Park Slope. It’s a beautiful area. I grew up there until I went to college in Washington DC where I met the love of my life, who’s here with me in Barcelona. We met in college and then I moved back to New York.

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Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Evgen Verzun, CEO of Kaizen Finance (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You work through incubators and accelerators.

Evgen Verzun: Yes. They come to us through the network. Somehow, they reach investors, right? These investors already have a successful experience with Kaizen. Investors refer us. Investors use us as crisis managers. It’s like, “We have a great project, but they have a huge problem.” We jump in and solve it. It’s tough, but we can do it very fast. It’s small pieces of the puzzle that we can put together.

Sramana Mitra: How many such customers do you have?

Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: EdgeVerve CEO Sateesh Seetharamiah (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: The use case that you just described works a lot better in automation than as humans. For humans to look at things and decide at what price to bid and whether to bid or not, there is no way humans can beat AI in doing something like this.

Sateesh Seetharamiah: It was done by humans. Even today.

Sramana Mitra: Wall Street traders made huge amounts of money in functions that don’t need to be done by humans.

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Thursday, November 10 – 596th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 596th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, November 10, 2022, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 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!

Best of Bootstrapping: Pura Vida Founders Bootstrapped to $130M

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

When we spoke in 2020, Pura Vida CEO Co-founder Griffin Thall and his partner had turned an investment of $200 into a $130 million company. Amazing execution!

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

Griffin Thall: I grew up in LA. I went to school at San Diego State. After graduating from college in 2010, my business partner and I went on a trip to Costa Rica. We were there for five weeks to travel, surf, and explore.

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Shopify Upsells to Merchants Amid eCommerce Slowdown

Earlier last month, Ontario-based Shopify (NYSE:SHOP) announced its quarterly results that outpaced market expectations. Despite the growing economic uncertainty, Shopify continues to invest in product upgrades to help merchants grow their business on its platform. As the recessionary conditions put pressure on the growth of e-commerce, Shopify’s investment into merchant focused products will help it continue to grow.

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: Evgen Verzun, CEO of Kaizen Finance (Part 1)

Ukrainian serial entrepreneur Evgen Verzun discusses the cesspool of Cyber Security problems within the Crypto space.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to the company.

Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: EdgeVerve CEO Sateesh Seetharamiah (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s pick three use cases and talk about what problem are you solving. What is exciting about that use case?

Sateesh Seetharamiah: I’ll pick three use cases that are publicly available. One of them is Philips. Philips had an opportunity to drive tremendous automation in its entire accounting and finance space. They had hundreds of people. Reliability was not up to the mark. There was a tremendous opportunity not just in terms of automation but also in terms of timely and efficient interventions.