Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Virtual Company to Scale

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

There’s been some controversy around whether virtual teams scale. Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal, scaled a sizeable business using a virtual team. Read this interview from 2015 to learn more.

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

Taso Du Val: I grew up in Massachusetts and Westchester, New York. I’m a high school dropout who started Toptal at the age of 25.

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Featured Videos

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Unique Vintage with a Paycheck

If you haven’t already, please study our freeBootstrapping courseand the Investor Introductions page.

Katie Echeverry, CEO and Founder of Unique Vintage, had a pharmaceutical sales job that she used to bootstrap with a paycheck for 5 years, before quitting to go full-time with her business. Here is our conversation from 2015.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Tell us where you’re from. Where did you grow up? Where were you born and raised?

Katie Echeverry: I was born in Burbank, California. I still reside in Burbank, California. I went to school and got my Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, but I ended up in sales. When I was about 26 years old, I ended up being a pharmaceutical sales rep, which I enjoyed. What I liked about sales is the harder I worked, the more money I made. I was a natural entrepreneur, but I just didn’t know the word for it. I worked really hard but that wasn’t enough for me.

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Catching Up On Readings: Digital Health 150

This report from CB Insights ranks 150 of the most promising digital health startups in the world. This year’s winning startups are working on interoperability and data integration, home care and monitoring, AR/VR in healthcare, and hybrid care. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Video FAQs

Thought Leaders in Artificial Intelligence: Squirro CEO Dorian Selz (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Do you have a bunch of customers who are using you across three of your use cases?

Dorian Selz: Across two and, in one case, across three use cases.

Sramana Mitra: That’s all in financial services?

Dorian Selz: Predominantly in financial services.

597th Roundtable Recording on December 15, 2022

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

January 19 – 598th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 598th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, January 19, 2023, 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!

Roundtable Recap: December 15 – Do You Have a FUNDABLE Business?

During this week’s roundtable, we had four presentations spanning a variety of projects.

Art of Headshots

We first had Carlos Taylhardat from Vancouver, Canada, pitch Art of Headshots, a business already in some revenue, and therefore validated. Carlos will need to assess whether he can and wants to raise funding for it.

Jamuun

Next, we had Vitrag Vasa from Maharashtra, Inda, pitch Jamuun, also a business already in revenue. Vitrag needs to assess the unit economics and capital needs to build the business to scale.

Educational Social App

Then we had Naanma Hilary from Nigeria pitch an educational social app that needs extensive competitive analysis.

Mando

From Nairobi, Kenya, we had Michael Sayo pitch Mando, a social enterprise that needs to assess how to become a for-profit venture.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

If you haven’t already, please study our Udemy courses, free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

As always, I would very much like to hear about your business, so let me invite you to come and pitch at one of our free 1Mby1M public roundtables. We will be holding future roundtables on:

Thursday, January 19, 2023, 8 a.m. PST, Register Here.

Thursday, February 2, 2023, 8 a.m. PST, Register Here.

Thursday, February 9, 2023, 8 a.m. PST, Register Here.

If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to join the 1Mby1M premium program. If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially What to expect from the 1Mby1M premium program and the FAQs. If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note that I work exclusively with 1Mby1M entrepreneurs.

One Million by One Million (1Mby1M) is the first global virtual accelerator in the world, founded in 2010 by Silicon Valley serial Entrepreneur Sramana Mitra. It offers a fully online entrepreneurship incubation, acceleration and education resource for solo entrepreneurs and bootstrapped founders working on tech and tech-enabled services ventures. 1Mby1M does not charge equity, offers an AI Mentor available 24/7 in 57 languages, and offers a compelling alternative to Y Combinator and other equity accelerators.

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, the Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first global virtual accelerator, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus on customers, revenues and profits. 1Mby1M’s mission is to help a Million entrepreneurs reach a million dollars in annual revenue and beyond. Sramana’s Digital Mind AI Mentor virtually mentors entrepreneurs around the world in 57 languages. Try it out!

Explore Related Topics 

• Alternative to Y Combinator: Why 1Mby1M Is the Smartest Option for Most Founders
• Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later
• Pre-Idea, Pre-MVP, Pre-Product, Pre-Revenue, Pre-Repeatability, Pre-Velocity Are All Okay for 1Mby1M
• Is 1Mby1M an Incubator or an Accelerator?
• 1Mby1M Can Prepare You for YC and Techstars
• Go Big or Go Home Is Terrible Advice for Startups
• The Myth of the Billion-Dollar Unicorn and the Reality of the 96% 
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• VC-Funded Profitable Failures – When $50M Revenue Isn’t Enough
• Death by Overfunding
• The Human Cost of Premature Blitzscaling
• Y Combinator’s Bias Against Solo Founders — and How 1Mby1M Empowers Them with the AI Mentor
• Why 3-month Startup Acceleration Programs Are Often Useless

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $300M!

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

Faisal Husain, CEO of Synechron, is one of those rare entrepreneurs who managed to grow his business with no outside financing to significant scale. We discussed his journey in 2015.

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

Faisal Husain: My roots are from India, but I was actually born in West Africa in Nigeria. My parents had moved from India to Nigeria in search of jobs and they were in the education field. My father was a principal and my mother was a math teacher. While they were doing their jobs and building their careers in Nigeria, I was born there. I lived in Nigeria for 13 years. At that point, my parents decided to move back home to India. I was then home schooled for about three or four years, and then came to the United States.

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