Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Sitecore Using Services to $1B Exit from Denmark

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

Sitecore not only reached global scale, but was competing with Oracle, Adobe, IBM, and Salesforce.com when I spoke with then CEO Michael Seifert in 2014. European software companies were seldom reaching global scale at that time. Sitecore was acquired by EQT AB for $1.1B in 2016. Read on to learn how he navigated the market.

Sramana: Michael, where are you from? What is the background to your story?

Michael Seifert: I was born in the Copenhagen area where I lived until first grade. I then moved to a little island in Denmark with a population of about fifty thousand people. I lived there with my mother and her brothers through high school. My father moved to the US when I was 8 or 9. I spent my summer vacations in the Bay area with my father. My first flight to the US was at age 11.

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Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What happened with Cincinnati airport after the one-month pilot? You now have some money to fix the usability issues. What were the commercials on that?

Ritukar Vijay: We were focusing on Robotics-as-a-Service model. There’s a fixed subscription for each month. These robots will perform deliveries. There’s potential revenue share. There was a lot of thought process going on during that time.

Real-World Examples for Building a Successful Two-Sided E-commerce Marketplace

Two-sided marketplaces are becoming increasingly popular in the e-commerce startup world. eBay and Etsy are some of the most obvious examples of two-sided marketplaces, but now we are seeing a lot of niche and esoteric marketplaces as well all over the world. 

So what does it take to be successful in this kind of business? 

This Udemy course provides real-world examples of successful two-sided marketplaces, as well as a step-by-step breakdown on how they were built.

1. Building a Two-Sided E-commerce Marketplace w/ Sramana Mitra

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Catching Up On Readings: Oscars 2023

This feature from The Wall Street Journal covers the highlights of the 95th edition of the Academy Awards held in Los Angeles on Sunday this week. Everything Everywhere All at Once was the big winner with seven Oscars. Its protagonist Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for best actress. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What was the use case for Cincinnati Airport?

Ritukar Vijay: To deliver goods. After the security check-in, there are gate-hugger personas. There are people who just fly off after the departure gate. We are not participating in any of the retail activities at the airport. 2020 was a time when the aviation industry was having a bad time. It was a nightmare.

They started looking at ways to engage people in more economic activities focusing on the non-aeronautical revenue. The airport came together to solve that problem. We did the first pilot in December 2020.

Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How did you find your co-founder?

Ritukar Vijay: One of the co-founders was in my college in the Robotics club. That goes back more than 15 years. The other two guys, we met through our careers during 2010 to 2012.

Sramana Mitra: In the robotics company?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services to $15M in Venture Capital

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

We continue to see exciting enterprise software companies being built by entrepreneurs who have roots in the consulting business and who have taken their domain knowledge and customer insights to develop compelling products to solve specific problems. Gravitant is yet another case in point. Before Gravitant was acquired by IBM in 2015, I spoke with Gravitant CEO Mohammed Farooq about his journey.

Sramana: Mohammed, let’s start our discussion by reviewing your background. Where do you come from? What are the roots of your entrepreneurial journey?

Mohammed Farooq: I am originally from India, close to Hyderabad. I went to engineering school in India and came to the United States in 1991 to attend graduate school. I was born in 1967 and went to school locally in India. I attended Gulbarga University in India where I studied mechanical engineering. I attended graduate school in Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, I completed a dual degree in operations research and computer science. I then did an MBA in finance as well.

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Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy (Part 1)

This is a very interesting story of bringing really complex technology from India to the global market with a complex sales cycle.

The long term potential is huge. The short term complexity of the business is equally huge. The founding team is doing an admirable job navigating the opportunity with commitment and resolve.