Building a Cutting Edge Drone Technology Company: Tom Walker, CEO of DroneUp (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Did you learn that there was this segment that has this need in the shipping segment?

Tom Walker: Port and port security. The problem at that time was there were so many industries that we knew could use it. I’ll give you an example from the insurance industry. A storm comes through an area and they’re sending inspectors to walk around and assess the damage. We knew that we could put a drone out and capture all of this in high resolution. We just knew the insurance industry was going to embrace us.

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From Solo Techie Entrepreneur to High Growth, Profitable Enterprise AI Success Story: Findability Sciences CEO Anand Mahurkar (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In launching this company, did you bootstrap? How did you get the company off the ground?

Anand Mahurkar: It was bootstrapped. I had a $10,000 bank account. Probably we are the only enterprise AI company that is profitable and revenue-making with no debt. I bootstrapped all these years. I got my first customer six months after starting the business.

Sramana Mitra: You wrote the software and you sold the software?

E-Commerce Unicorns 2022: Lofty Valuations for Profitable D2C E-Commerce Players Heyday and Vuori

According to the US Department of Commerce, e-commerce sales in the US grew 14.7% to $870 billion in 2021. The global e-commerce sales are expected to grow at 14.7% from 2020-2027. The industry is attracting a slew of entrepreneurs looking to cash in on this growth, resulting in the creation of several unicorn players.

Video FAQs

Building a Cutting Edge Drone Technology Company: Tom Walker, CEO of DroneUp (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Tell us how the side project turned into a business.

Tom Walker: I’ll tell you a funny story along the way. We had some people join the organization as volunteers. A retired CIO from a large company came on board. We were trying to build something, but we didn’t know what it was. We called it DART – Drone-Assisted Response Team. We were going to launch on Monday.

E-Commerce Unicorns 2022: Motorway and Flink Meet Pandemic Driven Demands through E-Commerce

According to a report published earlier this year, the e-commerce market in Europe is expected to grow 7.3% annually to $363 billion by 2027 from $481 billion in 2022. The recent pandemic has accelerated the demand for e-commerce across various sectors. Supply chain issues have accelerated the demand, and values for used cars. One such player, benefitting from this growth, is UK-based Motorway, which entered the Unicorn club recently.

579th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Evan Zimmerman, Jovono

Evan Zimmerman, Chairman of Jovono, discusses his fund’s investment philosophy, especially around pre-seed and seed.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Master Bootstrappers with $1+ Billion in Exits

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

There’s a GIGANTIC myth in the startup ecosystem. Go BIG or Go HOME! Raise GOBS of venture capital. Otherwise, you can’t build anything big. It’s GIGANTIC BS!

Watch this inspiring 2 minute 09 second video and learn how the Turakhia brothers have created over a billion dollars of personal wealth through significant exits without raising any venture capital:

Capital efficient ventures often end up creating a lot more money for entrepreneurs.

Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi and Flock, and his brother Divyank have bootstrapped Directi, a portfolio of Internet businesses over the last ~20 years. In 2014, they had their first $160 million exit. In 2016, they had a second $900 million exit. It’s a very interesting story of masterful business acumen and disciplined fundamentals-driven execution. Not a penny of external financing involved when we spoke in 2017, by the way.

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

Bhavin Turakhia: I was born and raised in Mumbai. My parents are originally from there. I went to school there. In many ways, the seeds for my entrepreneurship career were largely sown there. I remember in 1989, I was in the sixth grade when the school installed their very first computer room. I’m talking about a time when there was no Internet. There was no Windows. It was just GWBasic and MS-DOS. It was love at first sight.

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From Solo Techie Entrepreneur to High Growth, Profitable Enterprise AI Success Story: Findability Sciences CEO Anand Mahurkar (Part 1)

I always love doing stories of my readers. Anand has been following the blog since 2010. He has built a terrific, fundamentals-focused AI company. And I am thrilled.

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