Indian Unicorns 2022: Meesho Delivers Social Commerce Solutions

India’s social commerce market is expected to grow to $20 billion by 2025, up from $1-$1.5 billion in 2020. Analysts believe that social commerce can help connect more than 40 million small entrepreneurs across India. 85% of retailers using social commerce are small, offline-oriented business owners who are looking up to social commerce to drive their growth. Social commerce startup Meesho recently raised funding at a valuation of $4.9 billion.

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The form factor of your product was that you would just clip it on a retail machine?

Paresh Patel: The design was remarkably simple. It almost works like a thumb drive. You just take the device and plug it into the machine. In three seconds, it could take that legacy machine and convert it into a modern mobile machine.

Sramana Mitra: A million and a half worth of orders were from how many customers?‘

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped from Belarus, Raised Money from Silicon Valley

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

As you know, I love stories of entrepreneurs in different parts of the world finding success through grit and creativity. PandaDoc CEO Mikita Mikado’s story gives us an insight into what’s happening in Belarus, and how he has navigated his way to Silicon Valley. Based on this conversation from 2017, our Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later mantra holds!

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?

Mikita Mikado: I’m from Belarus, which is a small, former Soviet Union state on the western border of Russia. I was born in 1986. That’s about the time when things went down. My journey began there. I went to a normal Belarusian school. I was a typical Belarusian kid at that time.

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Video FAQs

Building a Mid-Market Cyber Security Company from Utah: Peter Bookman, CEO of Guard Dog (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: In your case, the fact that you had a successful exit was helpful. Repeat founders always have an easier time raising money.

Peter Bookman: It does not hurt when your story can begin with, “I had a good horse and a good jockey. We won the race.” It does something else. You tend not to be alarmed, and you tend to be quite patient. It is fascinating that we got funding during that crisis.

Indian Unicorns 2022: CRED Focuses on India’s Nascent Credit Card Market

About 57 million credit cards cater to the premium market in India. The Indian credit card industry is dominated by four banks that account for 70% of the total market. Unicorn CRED is making big moves in this industry.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I’ve experienced the use case that you described. The gas station around the corner from me doesn’t have any digital payment option.

Paresh Patel: That was the problem. The machine only took cash.

Sramana Mitra: Do the gas station people attend these kinds of trade shows?‘

Building a Mid-Market Cyber Security Company from Utah: Peter Bookman, CEO of Guard Dog (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Did you work for SonicWall?

Peter Bookman: I did not. I transitioned out. I’m always excited about the next opportunity.

Sramana Mitra: What year was that?

Peter Bookman: 2001.

Indian Unicorns 2022: Infra.Market Tackles India’s Construction Sector

The Indian construction market is expected to grow at 11% CAGR from 2021 through 2026 as rapidly evolving technology is redefining how construction business is conducted and managed in India. Infra.Market is an Indian unicorn that is disrupting the construction industry in the country.