Roundtable Recap: September 30 – What Works and What Doesn’t in AI Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Lloyed Lobo, Co-founder and President of Boast.ai, discussing his failures and eventual success building AI startups. Wonderful conversation.

Teleperson

For the entrepreneur pitch, we had Jesse Hollander, from Delray Beach, Florida, pitch Teleperson. Unfortunately, as I have said repeatedly, it is impossible to raise money to build MVPs, and this conversation is yet another iteration of this same flawed assumption that pervades the startup ecosystem.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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12 Udemy Courses with Entrepreneurship Case Studies

Entrepreneurship is not a career. It is a way of life.

For me, this journey began as a graduate student at MIT in 1994. The world watched Netscape go public that spring, and the Internet swept over us like a virus. As I wrote my Masters thesis, I also wrote my first business plan. We were, as a generation, shaping the Internet during those early years, and, my degree in hand, I was ready to jump into the unknown – from then on really, I have been jumping into unknowns at every turn.

12 Udemy Courses on How To Build a Startup While Working Full Time

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Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 1)

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

Kish and Vanessa bootstrapped to multi-million dollars in revenue selling a private label product before quitting their job. In this story, you also get to see the nuances of running successful (and not so successful) crowdfunding campaigns. Very interesting journey and insights.

Putting the Freshworks IPO in Context (Part 1)

On Nov 13, 2009, I wrote an article in my Forbes column titled India’s Next Celebrities. It was a year after the financial crisis.

Never mind the recession. In India, entrepreneurial energy has continued to grow. It still exists only in small pockets. And the sophistication of the entrepreneurial ecosystem has a long way to go before it can resemble anything like Silicon Valley–or even Israel. In this evolution, the Indian media has an important role to play.

At the time, I was busy trying to turn Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, into a celebrity. Hardly anyone had heard of HIM until my 2007 profile.

I had not yet launched 1Mby1M.

Girish Mathrubootham, avid fan of celebrity Tamil film star Rajnikant, had not yet launched Freshdesk (now Freshworks). He was still working at Zoho, under Sridhar’s tutelage.

Both of those events happened in 2010.

Roundtable Recap: September 23 – Spotlight on Exit Strategy

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Steven Mitzenmacher, SVP of Corporate Development at Rackspace Technology, to discuss the Buy-side thought process on Exit Strategy.

i3systems

For the entrepreneur pitch, we had Piyusa Ranjan Prusti from Mumbai, India, pitch i3systems. The company has 15 paying customers, but needs a strategy to increase velocity.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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5 Udemy Courses on How to do a Startup as a Non-technical Founder

Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, intellectuals have had to ask themselves, ‘Does Capitalism Still Work?’ I have explored this question for several years now, beginning with a seminal column I wrote for Forbes: Capitalism’s Fundamental Flaw. Two particular problems stand out.