1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Founder of Malpani Ventures (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: It’s wonderful to exchange notes. There are a couple of things you’ve said that I want to underscore. One is the importance of failure. The Indian ecosystem didn’t accept failures for a long time. It’s a cultural change where it’s okay to fail. You’re not penalized.

A very long time ago when I was a young entrepreneur, I talked to a lot of investors all the time. They would say, “We love entrepreneurs who have failed once and are doing it again.” This is deeply underappreciated.

Somebody who has tried it once and failed has already done a lot of learning on somebody else’s dime. It’s a prized commodity for investors.

Somebody who has tried it once and failed has already done a lot of learning on somebody else’s dime. It’s a prized commodity for investors.

Sramana Mitra

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Solo Entrepreneur Bootstrapping with a Paycheck to over $15M Revenue: SoPost CEO Jonny Grubin (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How much money did your friend put in?

Jonny Grubin: He put in £45,000, which for me felt like a huge amount of money.

Sramana Mitra: What exactly where you able to prove in that MVP? I’m so used to constantly working with people’s pitches. As you were speaking, one thing that struck me is you almost have two ideas in there. One is this idea that for people in urban areas where theft is higher and there’s no safe space to leave something. That is a real delivery problem.

562nd Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

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562nd Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting In 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 562nd FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, February 3, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST. CLICK HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

Best of Bootstrapping: A Serial Bootstrapping Entrepreneur’s Journey

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

Going against the grain of Venture Capital mania, in 1999, Beyond Security CEO Aviram Jenik started his second bootstrapped venture. When we spoke in 2017, 18 years later, he was still running it.

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?

Aviram Jenik: I was born and raised in Israel. I moved to California about 10 years ago. I spent most of my adult life in Israel. I studied at the Technion which is like MIT in Israel. We half-jokingly say that pretty much everyone can say that they went to the top 10 universities in Israel because there are less than 10 universities. I’m an entrepreneur by background. I started my first company, which was bootstrapped when I was about 19.

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Founder of Malpani Ventures (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s take those two sectors – SaaS and the fintech sectors. In SaaS, the metric is MRR. Do you have a particular metric that you measure by when you’re doing your SaaS investments?

Dr. Aniruddha Malpani: No, numbers can be easily gamed, and they are often not necessarily representative. As long as the entrepreneur has a plausible story and he can convince us, we’re more than happy to look at these investments.

Thursday, February 3 – 562nd 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 562nd FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, February 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!

Solo Entrepreneur Bootstrapping with a Paycheck to over $15M Revenue: SoPost CEO Jonny Grubin (Part 3)

Jonny Grubin: I wrote to a couple of friends and we launched an MVP. People couldn’t do anything with SoPost, but it allowed me to test the concept. In December 2012, we launched a website where you could sign up with your email address. You could add some delivery addresses and create a schedule, but you couldn’t do anything off the back of it.

Sramana Mitra: You said you worked with a couple of friends. You also had this paycheck that was still going when you started this company. Can you take me to that very beginning before you launched an MVP when you decided to restart? How long did you keep that other job?