Roundtable Recap: March 25 – Spotlight on Art Market Disruption Ideas

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Cindy Padnos, Founder and Managing Director at Illuminate Ventures. Cindy discussed the impact of Covid on the fund’s portfolio, as well as trends she sees.

ArtandFound.co

As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had Aditya Mehta from Mumbia, India, pitch Art&Found, a digital art marketplace based on NFTs.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Featured Videos

1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Ken Elefant, Partner and Co-Founder at Sorenson Ventures 2021 (Part 1)

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

Ken Elefant, Partner and Co-founder at Sorenson Ventures, talks about trends and his investment thesis.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about your funds. I know you have been working with your fund one and you are in the middle of raising your fund two. Fund one was about $100 million, right?

Best of Bootstrapping: Saatva Co-founder Bootstrapped a $25M E-Commerce Company

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

I have spoken with many VCs who are looking for e-commerce companies that can scale at venture pace, which is hard to achieve. On the other side of the spectrum, however, the bootstrapped e-commerce companies are going gangbusters! Co-founder Ricky Joshi’s Saatva is one such and a terrific company.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal back story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised?

Ricky Joshi: I was born in Columbus, Ohio. I went to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. I was very involved in the entrepreneurial scene there. I actually helped start the Dartmouth Entrepreneurial Network, which is now the flagship entrepreneurial program at Dartmouth. I started my first company at school. I ended up working at a place called IPG, which had 44,000 employees. We were tasked with visual innovation. The first thing I actually did was lead Series C investment round in Facebook. That was a deal I sourced and led. It was a Series C round with $500 million valuation. Obviously, that worked out well. I was able to do a lot of things there.

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Roundtable Recap: March 18 – Business Model Innovation

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Tim Guleri, Managing Director at Sierra Ventures. We had a terrific discussion on Business Model Innovation and Distribution Innovation that Tim believes trumps technology innovation. We went through some excellent examples. Do give this a listen!

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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

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Roundtable Recap: March 11 – Tough Love

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Laurel Touby, Managing Director of Supernode Ventures, who spoke about pre-seed investing in Latin America.

EBuzzSpace.com

As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had George Kajaia from Tbilisi, Georgia, pitch EBuzzSpace.com. a very large, nebulous concept that he is trying to raise money for, but I think is unfundable.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Bootstrapping to $7 Million: Constellix CEO Steven Job (Part 1)

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

Steven has built a lean company with 37 people and has scaled it to $7 million. Read on to learn how.

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?

Thought Leaders in Healthcare IT: Brian Phillips, CEO of MedShift (Part 1)

Brian talks about IT in the medical aesthetics world.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s introduce MedShift and yourself to our audience. 

Brian Phillips: Thanks for having me. I’m the CEO of MedShift. We are a medical technology company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. 

Roundtable Recap: March 4 – Covid’s Impact on Startups

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest John Frankel, Partner at ff Venture Capital. We had an extensive discussion about Covid’s impact on the startup ecosystem, the changes we notice, so forth.

IBEDx

As for our entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Kaustubh Kashyap and Ismail Umar from Dubai, UAE, pitch IBEDx, an EdTech venture.

Digial Sound Catcher

Next, Manuel Mionl from Las Vegas, NV, pitched Digital Sound Catcher, a chip venture.

Safe Deal

Then, Chen Osipov from Fremont, California, pitched Safe Deal, a browser extension for safe shopping.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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