Sramana Mitra: How long into your independent journey did the acquisition happen?
Kashyap Deorah: Three years.
Sramana Mitra: Then you stayed at Future group for two more years?
Kashyap Deorah: Correct.
Sramana Mitra: In those later two years, did the business change? India was coming online at a very fast pace.
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If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
I am always thrilled to do stories of pioneering entrepreneurs building technology startups in remote locations. Anjan Pathak, Co-founder and CTO of Vantage Circle, brings us into the nascent scene in Guwahati, in the northeast Indian state of Assam.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?
Anjan Pathak: I was born in a small town in North East India. It’s about 50 kilometers from Guwahati. I spent my childhood there. I studied in a very small school.
From there, I went to Guwahati. That is where I met my co-founder Partha Neog. I studied there for two weeks and after that, I went to the engineering school in Nagpur. I spent four years in Nagpur. I graduated and worked for a year and a half in a services company.

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 566th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, March 3, 2022, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 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: For the digital agency, how were you acquiring your clients?
Jonathan Foltz: No one believes me when I say this. It started off with friends and people I knew. I never marketed, ever.
Sramana Mitra: What year was this?
Jonathan Foltz: We started in 2009. 2010 and further was when things started to accelerate.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Talk a little bit about that project – the one where we met.
Kashyap Deorah: I was always inspired by the power of the internet to democratize disaggregated markets. One of the problems I saw was that not all the market participants get the same opportunity. Internet was not mainstream at that time. The idea was to create an eBay over the phone where buyers and sellers could call a number and talk to a person who would have an assisted commerce layer.
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Jonathan has had to shepherd his jewelry e-commerce venture through the pandemic first. Then came the Apple iOS battle with Facebook which has rendered small merchants ineffective on the Facebook platforms.
Read how a scrappy, creative entrepreneur is managing all the curveballs thrown at him.
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If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
George Anderson, Founder and CEO of Ninth Wave, offers another case study for our very popular Bootstrapping Using Services track.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?
George Anderson: I was born in Long Island. I found myself in technology by accident. My first job was through a referral from my family. My father sent me for an interview. I got a job working for an analytical laboratory in New Jersey.

Kashyap had early success with three of his companies, each of which had very small amounts of friends and family financing. He pretty much bootstrapped these three startups to rapid exits.
His fourth startup, HyperTrack, has been a challenging journey, but he has navigated it well, and turned around the earlier setbacks over the last five years.
Wonderful 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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