Best of Bootstrapping: Founders Bootstrapped Using Services from Atlanta

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

Adding to our roster of Bootstrapping Using Services case studies, here’s my conversation with PMG.net Founders Joe LeCompte and Robert Castles from 2015.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Tell us a bit about where you come from, where you were born and raised, and in what kind of background.

Robert Castles: I was born in Columbia, South Carolina. I spent the first half of my life there through to college. I have always been interested in technology as early as I can remember. When I was 11 years old, I begged my father for a Radio Shack Color Computer so that I could take it home and learn how to program. This is while all my friends were looking for baseball mitts, which I also like. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for that computer, which I got.

>>>

Featured Videos

Capital Efficient Strategy for Generative AI Startups: RavenPack CEO Armando Gonzalez (Part 1)

Armando has built an AI company over 20 years, deeply focusing on Finance and Trading.
He discusses his journey, and also reflects on how generative AI startups can be built in a capital-efficient manner. Great conversation!

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

Cloud Stocks: Atlassian Embeds AI into Solutions

According to a recent report, the global enterprise collaboration market is expected to grow 15% to $54.88 billion this year and grow at 14% CAGR to reach $92.4 billion by 2027. Atlassian (Nasdaq: TEAM) recently announced its third quarter results that surpassed market expectations.

Video FAQs

Catching Up On Readings: State of AI Q1’23

This report from CB Insights covers the funding trends in the AI space. While lobal AI funding plunged in the quarter, the number of unicorns was steady. Three Generative AI unicorns joined the club this quarter including  Anthropic, Adept, and Character.AI. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Building an AI-Powered Pharmaceutical Services Business: VIDA CEO Susan Wood (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Data is clearly going to change the pharmaceutical industry.

Susan Wood: Similarly to find sites. Here are 50 sites that do high-quality imaging work. We went into this by getting imaging biomarkers. That’s an important thing, but more importantly, there are so many disconnects and inefficiencies in running these trials that our data can help in other ways.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Unicorn First Using Services from Utah

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

Our tried-and-true mantra of Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later rings throughout Dave Elkington’s story. As the Founder of InsideSales.com, he used services to bootstrap a Unicorn that had raised close to $140 million in VC funding when we spoke in 2015. Revenue was scaling 100% year over year then. InsideSales.com became known as XANT and was acquired by Aurea Software in 2021.

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

Dave Elkington: I grew up in Utah. I went to school here. My parents are both school teachers and worked for the state and federal government. It was a little bit atypical. My dad was a rancher growing up in Idaho. My mom is from Canada. When people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them I wanted to be a millionaire. They would ask why. I’d be like, “Not for the money, but purely for the sake of accomplishment of being able to do that.” I went to school locally. My education is a little bit eclectic. I have an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. I also have minors in Hebrew, Japanese History, and Business. I also studied, for about a year, in Israel. I decided I wanted to go get some international experience and I had family in Israel. I dropped out of school at BYU and applied to the Hebrew University. I got accepted and transferred credits. I did that for a little over a year, dropped out of school, and applied to BYU. I got re-accepted and then finished at BYU.

>>>

607th 1Mby1M Roundtable Recording

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

Roundtable Recap: May 18 – Spotlight on Customer Acquisition

During this week’s roundtable, our focus was on customer acquisition strategy.

Rezeve

First up, we had Adrian Ng from Singapore pitch Rezeve, a software for running small services businesses.

Youzentech Technologies

Next, we had Rajkapoor Singh from Bangalore, India, pitch Youzentech Technologies, a semiconductor chip verification company.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

>>>