Non-Technical Founder Scaling SaaS Venture to Exit: Velocify Founder Jeff Solomon (Part 6)

Jeff Solomon: I talked to some other mentors and people I’ve met over the years and came to the conclusion that it was better for me to leave the day-to-day operations. I probably undersold my value to our Board and to our investors. The investors didn’t appreciate the scrappy founder guy like they do now.

Sramana Mitra: The general philosophy and appreciation of first-time founders has gone up tremendously. At the time that you’re describing, I don’t think we were quite there yet.

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Non-Technical Founder Building a Tech Startup to over $10M: David Moricca, CEO of Socialive (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What year did you launch Socialive?

David Moricca: July 2016 was when we first brought the product out. Then we rebranded it to Socialive in October 2016. The last five years, we’ve been Socialive.

Sramana Mitra: How did you price the product?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping to $10M from Finland

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

In our effort to bring you stories from the global startup ecosystem, here we introduce you to Mikko Valimaki, Co-founder of Tuxera, and his wonderful success story from Finland.

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 circumstances?

Mikko Valimaki: I’m a 39-year-old guy from Finland. I did my schooling in Finland. I did, however, study in Berkeley in the United States and was exposed to the American culture. I’ve never worked for any big company. I always started my own stuff. I had already developed my own computer games back in the 1990s while at high school. I tried to sell those.

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December 16 – 557th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 557th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, December 16, 2021, 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!

556th Roundtable Recording with Seong Kim, Chegg

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

Roundtable Recap: December 9 – Discussion on EdTech Exit Strategy

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Seong Kim, Corporate Strategy & Development for Chegg Inc., to discuss exit strategy within EdTech.

Relai

As for entrepreneur pitches, we had 1Mby1M Premium member Claudia Giannoni from London, UK, pitching Relai, a real estate marketplace leveraging the SaaS-enabled marketplace trend that we like a lot.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Non-Technical Founder Scaling SaaS Venture to Exit: Velocify Founder Jeff Solomon (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What is the next major milestone in the history of the company?

Jeff Solomon: Two things. We started to get heavy in insurance. At that time, the secondary education market was growing fast. It’s a very similar model to mortgage in the sense that the money was coming from the government. There was a backlash in that category as well, but we were more careful.

We diversified into those categories which protected us. We found that the categories were anticyclical. When mortgage was up, insurance was down. When insurance was up, mortgage was down. We were able to ride waves and handle the downturnts pretty well.

Non-Technical Founder Building a Tech Startup to over $10m: David Moricca, CEO of Socialive (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Six years is a long time. How much money did you raise to get through six years with little revenue?

David Moricca: Over the years, probably $5 million or less. This was over six to eight years. It sounds crazy.

Sramana Mitra: I’m not surprised that you were able to survive on $6 million for six years. I’m surprised that you were able to raise $6 million given the fact that investors look for scalability. The whole point of venture capital financing is to go from zero to a $100 million in five years. Investors are notorious for pulling the plug the minute they see things not going in the right direction.