Student Developers Bootstrapping with a Paycheck, Then Growing to a Million Users: Ben Spring, CEO of TryHackMe (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How many enterprise customers do you have right now?

Ben Spring: Well over a hundred. We’ve been super fortunate to onboard Fortune 500 companies, lots of governments, lots of schools, and colleges. We’ve done some really rewarding work with the education of Scotland to provide training to 14 and 15-year-olds to break into the industry. We’ve been able to expand the number of people using TryHackMe whether you’re a 14-year-old, someone who wants to transition jobs, or someone who’s working in a business.

Featured Videos

Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: My Digital Money CEO Guy Gotslak (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How many crypto traders are on the system?

Guy Gotslak: We’re in the thousands so far. Each individual contributes a good amount because the average IRA that comes in is $25,000 to $50,000. We’re already in the thousands of users and growing.

Sramana Mitra: What is your business model?

Guy Gotslak: We take a transaction fee. We’re looking to expand our products into other assets as well.

Colors: Les Pines II

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Les Pins II

Les Pins II | Sramana Mitra, 2020 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9  x 12, On Paper

Video FAQs

Student Developers Bootstrapping with a Paycheck, Then Growing to a Million Users: Ben Spring, CEO of TryHackMe (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What was happening with the business? Were the conversation rates increasing? Was the number of users increasing and how?

Ben Spring: It was completely organic. We were incredibly lucky. It was just word-of-mouth. We really tried to make a great user experience and understand the user’s problem. At the time, I was constantly iterating on the product and speaking to users. The conversion was still fairly low. I was going into my old job and I just couldn’t stop thinking about TryHackMe. I’d go out on my lunch and I’d be writing emails and doing stuff on the side. I took the jump to leave.

583rd Roundtable Recording with Pawel Maj, Warsaw Equity Group

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

Roundtable Recap: July 21 – Spotlight on Post-Seed and Pre-Series A Funding in Europe

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Pawel Maj, Investment Director, Warsaw Equity Group. We discussed post-seed and pre-series A funding in Eastern and Central Europe in the context of his firm’s investment thesis.

Matomela Group

For our entrepreneur pitches, we first had Mthetho Phakathi, from Pretoria, South Africa, pitch Matomela Group, a manufacturing venture.

Interlpure

Next, Rigdha Banerjee from Jersey City, New Jersey, pitched Intelpure, a clothing rental marketplace concept.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Thought Leaders in Financial Technology: My Digital Money CEO Guy Gotslak (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: To what extent did the consulting business help you in this new project?

Guy Gotslak: A lot. I was customer-focused. I wanted to get personalized services to our clients. We ended up getting acquired by a software company that does personalization where the idea is to help give personalized digital experiences. It can be on any channel. I just became passionate about being able to do that but still keep humans in the mix too.

Sramana Mitra: You stayed with the company that acquired you?

Cloud Stocks: Expensify Tests Other Services for Growth

The global expense management software market is expected to grow at 12% CAGR to reach $6.6 billion by 2025 driven by the continuing centralization of enterprise expense-related data. Centralizing all-expense-related data along with utilizing expense management software provides organizations with the ability to review, monitor, and manage expense reports on the go. While the market remains dominated by bigger players like SAP Concur, Sodexo, and Intuit, Expensify (Nasdaq: EXFY) is a smaller player that went public last year.