Entrepreneurs are invited to the 570th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, April 7, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/4 p.m. CET/8:30 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!
Sramana Mitra: How did you decide who was going to be the CEO?
Valon Xhafa: It was a common agreement. We didn’t have a concrete discussion about who’s going to be the CEO. For us, the vision mattered more. This was a really important thing. I learnt from my friends that they have a lot of issues with their co-founders about this specific decision instead of focusing on building the MVP.
Having a co-founder with whom you have a common agreement and having open communication is really important. We have different perspectives on different things. My co-founder is more like going step by step and checking stuff. I’m a bit more into going faster and spending more money. We average out in the middle.
>>>According to a recent report by Verified Market Research, the global serverless architecture market is estimated to grow at 22% CAGR to reach $38.6 billion by 2028. Digital Ocean (NYSE: DOCN) sees that as an opportunity as it expands its presence in the market.
>>>Manasi made the journey from a technologist to a founder CEO, raised over $10M in funding, and has built over $5M in revenue with her first startup.
Amazing execution!
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?
>>>This report from CB Insights analyzes how companies across 65 industries use innovatively using Blockchain. The global blockchain unicorn count jumped from 9 to 47 in 2021. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.
>>>I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Himalayan Winter II
Himalayan Winter II | Sramana Mitra, 2020 | Watercolor, Brush Pen | 9 x 12, On Paper
Sramana Mitra: What did you do next?
Valon Xhafa: I wanted to start something else. I wanted to build something from scratch. I tried to use different matchmaking platforms for co-founders. I met my co-founder. We matched. I liked his profile. He was doing his Ph.D. in behavioral science. He was talking about how you can incentivize customers in online stores to make specific decisions.
>>>Sramana Mitra: There were two things that you talked about in this case study. One is there are so many developers out there who want to be entrepreneurs. Very often, they don’t know which problem to solve or they don’t have the domain knowledge.
In your case, you went to this media accelerator and met journalists who had a problem they wanted to solve. This enmeshing of non-technical domain knowledge and a technical person creates very interesting company opportunities. That’s one way developers can become entrepreneurs.
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