From Developer to Successful Entrepreneur with Exit: ACCELQ CEO Mahendra Alladi (Part 1)

Mahendra transitioned from a developer to a successful entrepreneur with his first company, exited it, and then started ACCELQ. ACCELQ already has 200 customers and is a profitable, bootstrapped company growing fast. A wonderful and inspiring story!

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?

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From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Hevo Data CEO Manish Jethani (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to come up with a product?

Manish Jethani: This is very interesting. We signed an agreement with one customer that if we deliver that product, they will pay us $50,000.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of customer?

Manish Jethani: This was the largest food-tech delivery company in India. They were scaling hyper-fast. They didn’t have a team. After we got such strong validation, we started building the product. From my past learning, it was obvious that unless we have a very strong intent from the customer, we’re not going to build the product. The first version was out in four months. It didn’t have a lot of functionality. It wasn’t self-serve yet.

Catching Up On Readings: Post-Pandemic E-commerce

This feature from The Wall Street Journal looks at how consumers are finding a new balance between online and in-person shopping post the pandemic. In March, online spending dropped by 3.3%, the first year-over-year decline since November 2013 while spending in bricks-and-mortar stores was 11.2%. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Video FAQs

From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Hevo Data CEO Manish Jethani (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: When you launched this, how did you get it off the ground? The problem you’re describing is a very large problem and there are a lot of people working on this. Data, as you know, has become one of the biggest categories in which people are doing startups. The combination of data and machine learning has become very big.

A lot of people have observed that there are non-technical people trying to make data-driven decisions. They need tools and technologies to do this. This is not a virgin field. Timeline-wise, you were in the middle of a big wave. The solution to this for digital marketing than the solution for the supply chain. Where did you start? Talk about the process of getting this venture off the ground.

Colors: Fall Reverie II

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 – Fall Reverie II

Fall Reverie II | Sramana Mitra, 2020 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9  x 12, On Paper

From Hard Core Techie to Successful Entrepreneur: Francis Dinha, CEO of OpenVPN (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You were doing a hosted product until recently.

Francis Dinha: Yes. Even Bloomberg came to us. They said, “What about if we license your software? We pay you half a million dollars one time.” I said no. Our model is subscription. Google was our customer for three years. They used our self-hosted solution. Then they wanted to have so many features. I said, “You can take our open source and build on your own.” They did that.

Sramana Mitra: That’s a very good point – saying no to certain opportunities. It’s an important part of building a business. You have to stick to your vision.

April 21 – 572nd 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 572nd FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, April 21, 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!

571st Roundtable Recording on April 14, 2022

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here: