Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping a Niche E-commerce Company to $20M

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

Niche e-commerce still produces compelling success stories. Read on to see how CEO Brian Lim built iHeartRaves.

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

Brian Lim: I was raised in LA County. My parents immigrated here to escape communism in China and Cambodia. I grew up very poor. We bootstrapped our company back in 2010 with $100 and turned it into a $20 million a year company.

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Netflix Searches for Alternate Monetization Opportunities

Earlier this week Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) reported its first-quarter performance that failed to impress the market. With the global pandemic restrictions easing, the company appears to be struggling to attract and grow its user base.

Leveraging Channels and Slovenia to build Successful Businesses: Simon Taylor, CEO of HYCU (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The business partner who has all these outsourcing companies, is he Slovenian?

Simon Taylor: Serbian actually. He still runs a large outsourcing company. We spun out from them. We started moving very quickly. We added our first 500 customers in our first year. We added a thousand in the second.

Sramana Mitra: This is a crowded space. What was so special about HYCU?

Video FAQs

Roundtable Recap: May 5 – Spotlight on the Ohio Startup Ecosystem

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Bill Baumel, Managing Director at Ohio Innovation Fund, one of the pioneers of the Ohio startup ecosystem.

CaterBite

As for entrepreneur pitch, we had Boddu Venkat Sujith from Visakhapatnam, India, pitch CaterBite, a concept arbitrage on EZCater, a Unicorn.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Julie Lein, Managing Partner at Urban Innovation Fund (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The narrative in the media is how much money have you raised. The maximum focus is on the people raising the most money. That is a flawed way of evaluating companies. There are a lot of innovations that are done in a capital-efficient way. As such, they have a lot more options. The exit option is larger. They are not so dependent on a constant infusion of capital to sustain themselves.

Julie Lein: I agree wholeheartedly. We call those vanity metrics. Capital raise and valuation are extremely important barometers, but they’re not the only ones. They’re the ones that tend to get the most coverage in the media.

574th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 574th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, May 5, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

574th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting in 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 574th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, May 5, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

Apple Expands Product Line-up But Faces Supply Issues

Earlier last week, Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) announced its second-quarter results that surpassed market expectations. All of Apple’s segments, except the iPad, reported year-on-year growth for the second consecutive quarter this year. In the coming quarters, Apple does not appear to be constrained by market demand, but by market supply.