How Investors Think

If you’ve been bootstrapping your company for a bit, and are wondering whether or not to raise money, remember, Investors are looking to multiply the money that they put into startups.

Multiply by how much? 2X? 3X? 5X? 10X? 20X?

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Featured Videos

Roundtable Recap: June 3 – Discussion on Two-sided Marketplaces and Bootstrapping with a Paycheck

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Gene Caballero, Co-founder of GreenPal, a company that was bootstrapped with a paycheck, and has built a sizable two-sided marketplace.

The Whisper Company

As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had Alejandro Fernandez from Austin, Texas, pitching The Whisper Company, a biometric-enabled secure messaging technology.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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1Mby1M Virtual Accelerator Investor Forum: With Michael Smerklo, Co-founder and Managing Director at Next Coast Ventures 2021 (Part 1)

Michael Smerklo is Co-founder and Managing Director at Next Coast Ventures. We have a terrific conversation about a range of issues including solo founders and their ill-treatment by VCs.

Sramana Mitra: We are going to start today’s session with a conversation with Micheal Smerkio, co-founder and managing partner at Next Coast Ventures. Welcome back to the show. 

Video FAQs

Cloud Stocks: Wix Goes on an Acquisition Spree

Israel-based Wix.com (Nasdaq:WIX) has seen significant expansion due to the recent Covid crisis. The company recently reported its first quarter results that surpassed market expectations. During the quarter, Wix continued to add capabilities through acquisitions.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Journey of a Child Entrepreneur in India

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

Varun Shoor is the Founder of Kayako, a company offering advanced helpdesk management software. When we spoke in 2014, Varun was steering the overall direction of the company and as customer experience fanatic and lead product architect, taking an active role in the design and development of Kayako. One of Varun’s greatest passions is design. Applying modern, consumer-like design to stuffy business helpdesk software was Varun’s brainchild, and with it he founded Kayako in 2001.

Sramana: Varun, let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? What is the backstory to Kayako?

Varun Shoor: I was born in Jalandhar, a city in Punjab. I have had no formal education. I started Kayako when I was 17. My family background is industrial by nature. My father is into manufacturing, primary tools such as hammers.

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530th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Shane Neman, Neman Ventures

Shane Neman is Founder of EZ Texting, JoonBug.com, and Principal at Neman Ventures. Shane has bootstrapped two companies as a solo entrepreneur, found successful exits for both, and is now an investor. Needless to say, he has no bias against solopreneurs.

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Thought Leaders in Internet of Things: Ben Forgan, CEO of Hologram (Part 1)

Ben discusses IoT connectivity and use cases.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself and Hologram.

Ben Forgan: I’m the CEO of Hologram. Hologram is a connectivity startup focused on providing internet access for IoT devices. We talk about wanting to be able to connect any device to any network instantaneously anywhere. That is our vision for the product. In basic terms, you can think of it as phone plans for things that aren’t phones. We have been around for about seven years now. We are just chugging away. 

Cloud Stocks: Amazon’s Ad Revenue on the Rise

Tech giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) recently reported its quarterly results that surpassed all market expectations. The company is seeing stellar growth within the e-commerce business driven by the global lockdown conditions. But it is not just e-commerce. Amazon continued to upgrade its products and services across the board and is seeing strong market performance across all categories.