Bootstrapping to $3M a month: Prequel CEO Timur Khabirov (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Explain, step by step, how you brought this product to market?

Timur Khabirov: You need to understand what the market needs. We have social media platforms. What do they need? First and foremost, it has to be a time saver. Then, it has to be easy.

Sramana Mitra: Are we talking about a B2C product?

Featured Videos

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Web Hosting Company to $60M

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

When we spoke in 2014, Christopher Aker, Founder of Linode, had already had many opportunities to raise money along the way while bootstrapping to a $60 million revenue level. Find out why he chose not to. Linode was acquired by Akamai Technologies in 2022.

Sramana: Chris, let’s start with the beginning of your story. Tell me where you are from and set the stage for your entrepreneurial journey.

Christopher Aker: I was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. We lived on the main land off of a coastal barrier island. I had a traditional American, South Jersey coastal upbringing. We had a lot of summer jobs and a huge amount of people would flock to our town in the summer to enjoy the beach.

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602nd 1Mby1M Roundtable Recording

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

Video FAQs

Roundtable Recap: March 16 – Two Startups Already in Revenue

During this week’s roundtable, we worked with two entrepreneurs.

Albiva

First up, we had Ivana Iesini from London, UK, pitch Albiva – a natural skin care line that is already in revenue.

ChargebackZero

Next, we had Vasanth Matamudra from San Ramon, California, with Sudhir and Raja in India, pitching ChargebackZero, a FinTech venture that is also already in revenue.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Bootstrapping to $3M a month: Prequel CEO Timur Khabirov (Part 1)

Timur has bootstrapped a digital app to $3M a month. Read on to learn how.

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

Best of Bootstrapping: Serial Entrepreneur Bootstrapped Using Services Repeatedly

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

See how a serial entrepreneur used the ‘Bootstrapping Using Services’ methodology repeatedly to get companies off the ground. Krishna Kumar, Founder of App Orchid, I’ve learned, is sadly now deceased. From this conversation from 2014, you can imagine that he has left behind quite a legacy.

Sramana: Krishna, let’s start with the beginning of your personal story. Where are you from, what is your background? What leads up to your entrepreneurial story?

Krishna Kumar: I was born in India. I came to the US in 1996. I worked my way up the consulting chain from an SAP consultant to the Vice President of Ness, a consulting firm based in New Jersey. Ness was also primarily an SAP shop. It was a NASDAQ-listed company and I had exposure to both the strategy and product sides of the house.

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Mastering Bootstrapping: 6 Essential Courses for Launching a Capital-Efficient Startup

Most businesses can be launched in a capital efficient manner. Most businesses can go a long way in a bootstrapped mode. As long as you’re not taking on capital guzzlers like drug discovery or semiconductor chips, you have many options to explore.

At 1Mby1M, we don’t insist on fund raising. A bootstrapped, capital-efficient, million-dollar business is considered a success in our worldview, as long as you are profitable and sustainable.

What is bootstrapping? It’s what happens when you use your own resources, which you control, to build a business. 

The first six courses below focus on different bootstrapping methods, so if you study all of them ahead of time, you’ll be able to cross the first barrier of getting your venture off the ground.

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Building a Robotics Company from India: Ritukar Vijay CEO of Ottonomy (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Who’s paying?

Ritukar Vijay: The concessionaire, airport, and end customer. End customers are paying for convenience. They don’t have to pay any tips.

Sramana Mitra: Are you making your revenue from the airport payments or concessionaires?

Ritukar Vijay: All three of them. We are the single point of contact with the consumer where we are getting the order value.