Bootstrapping Using Services and Piggybacking from Australia: StoreConnect CEO Mikel Lindsaar (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Where did this idea come from?

Mikel Lindsaar: From the services business. reinteractive does a lot of customer applications connected to Salesforce.

Sramana Mitra: Are all your product ideas from your services business?

Mikel Lindsaar: MetaPulse was something that I always wanted to build. I created my services business so I can create MetaPulse. StoreConnect came out of reinteractive.

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Dutch Student Entrepreneurs Building a Large Scale EdTech Marketplace: StuDocu CEO Marnix Broer (Part 4)

Marnix Broer: For us, that was the challenge to show that we can launch StuDocu anywhere in the world from the Netherlands. Eventually, it worked out. Spain was great to show that we can do it in any language. Australia was great to show how far you can go without going there physically. We could have proven that by simply going to Germany or UK. In the end, it’s more about launching from the Netherlands while it’s abroad.

Sramana Mitra: What does it entail besides putting the website together? How did you launch in different geographies?

Bootstrapping Using Services and Piggybacking from Australia: StoreConnect CEO Mikel Lindsaar (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Even though you had co-founders, there was no outside money.

Mikel Lindsaar: Yes, everything was bootstrapped.

Sramana Mitra: You talked about four SaaS apps now. Three of them you exited, and one is still running.

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Best of Bootstrapping: The Journey Through Failure to Success

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

Entrepreneurs love to discuss success. Few are willing to discuss what they tried and failed at. When we spoke in 2019, Robly Co-founder Adam Robinson did a terrific job of sharing his journey through various failed experiments to a model that was gaining traction.

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?

Adam Robinson: I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I went to Rice University. I graduated in 2003. One of my friends had an internship at Goldman-Sachs the year before.

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Dutch Student Entrepreneurs Building a Large Scale EdTech Marketplace: StuDocu CEO Marnix Broer (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What year does this bring us up to?

Marnix Broer: This was in 2014. That was the moment we tried to see if we can go abroad. At that moment, we had two challenges. One was, can we make a business out of this? The main goal is to help students all over the world. As a company, you have to be healthy to survive. We needed a business model.

We’d launched in all universities in the Netherlands. Now we had to broaden our audience and expand our market. We did that. We implemented a premium system. That’s where the business model came in.

Bootstrapping Using Services and Piggybacking from Australia: StoreConnect CEO Mikel Lindsaar (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was reinteractive?

Mikel Lindsaar: reinteractive is a consulting business. We do software development. I really wanted to build a SaaS business, but I didn’t have the resources or the people to start it. I didn’t have any way to get funding at that point.

Sramana Mitra: What you’re describing – starting with a consulting company – is a very common way. We have a whole track in One Million by One Million that we call Bootstrapping Using Services.

Thursday, July 14 – 583rd 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 583rd FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, July 14, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/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!

Dutch Student Entrepreneurs Building a Large Scale EdTech Marketplace: StuDocu CEO Marnix Broer (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Did you build the platform yourself?

Marnix Broer: Yes. I started with Jacques. He was my roommate in the student house. Soon we needed someone to build the website. That’s when I knocked on the door of my old friend from high school who was also studying in Delft.

Later on, we saw that he was great at that. He also had a friend helping him out. They joined us. That’s how we bootstrapped the first website. As soon as we had the first documents up, it went like wildfire. Everybody started using it in just a couple of weeks. Then we got requests from students in other cities. They gave their documents. We put them online.