Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Virtual Company to $25M

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

I am a huge fan of virtual companies. Here is a conversation from 2019 about a virtual company built with excellent execution by a Russian entrepreneur, Percona Founder CEO Peter Zaitsev.

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?

Peter Zaitsev: I was born in what was the Soviet Union. I studied Math and Computer Science in Moscow State University. I started my first startup company while studying.

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Building a Global Hardcore Financial Technology Company from Brazil: Ricardo Josua, CEO of Pismo (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Your core value proposition when it comes to the global market is the combination of payments and core banking?

Ricardo Josua: This is one of the main features. You have everything rolled up in a single integration. The second one was that this is not a monolithic solution. It can provide all the systems, but you can build around them. One of the pains that we try to solve was that we don’t want to be the bottleneck in the development of products from our clients. We have to make sure that we have out-of-the-box solutions if you want a basic product.

From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Michael Morris, CEO of Torc (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How big is the developer community now?

Michael Morris: It’s about 2,600 people. We’re still getting off the ground. Out of that, about 500 are vetted. These are people who have gone through our assessment process, built their profiles, linked up their GitHub accounts, and installed and started using our productivity tool.

Sramana Mitra: You have enterprise customers already?

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588th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 588th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, September 1, 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!

588th Roundtable for Entrepreneurs Starting in 20 Minutes: Live Tweeting by @1Mby1M

Today’s 588th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable for Entrepreneurs is starting in 20 minutes, on Thursday, September 1, 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!

Building a Global Hardcore Financial Technology Company from Brazil: Ricardo Josua, CEO of Pismo (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Were these Brazilian banks?

Ricardo Josua: The first ones, yes. The first one we went to was the largest bank in Brazil. We ended up closing this large contract. It was an experiment. Just having the open door there changed everything.

Sramana Mitra: Now you can go to all the other Brazilian banks and say that you’re working with the largest bank.

From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Michael Morris, CEO of Torc (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me what is the beginning of Torc. How much funding did Frank put in?

Michael Morris: That was an important piece for me. Through my experiences at Appirio and Topcoder, I knew about the effort it takes to fundraise. I was concerned about it. I didn’t want to spend all my time constantly fundraising. I just wanted to build something and focus on that. The fact that they were private equity was a little bit of a different structure. I don’t see myself going to somebody else. We had a commitment for a large level of funding, but we’ve only taken $5 million.