Roundtable Recap: June 17 – Two Excellent Bootstrapping Case Studies

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest San Banerjee, Co-founder of ADDA. San talked about her entrepreneurial journey as a bootstrapped entrepreneur tackling heavily funded competitors.

Tech Adaptika

As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had Hosni Zaoual ifrom Toronto, Canada, pitch Tech Adaptika. The company has bootstrapped very well to a $2M ARR level and has a strong pipeline. They’re getting traction in the virtual conferencing market.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Featured Videos

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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Roundtable Recap: June 10 – More on Two-sided Marketplaces

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Jon Staenberg, Managing Partner at Staenberg Venture Partners. We discussed the trends he is seeing and investment thesis he is following.

Foodoop

As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had Chandra Subramanian from Helsinki, Finland, pitch Foodoop, a two-sided marketplace for home cooks to offer their services to consumers.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Video FAQs

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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Roundtable Recap: May 27 – Discussion on Deep Tech Investing

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Karthee Madasamy, Founder and Managing Partner, Mobile Foundation Ventures. We discussed the nuances of Deep Tech investing.

VEGG

As for our entrepreneur pitch, we had 1Mby1M Premium member Akshar Vastarpara from Gujarat, India, pitching VEGG, a smart home solution.

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. 

Roundtable Recap: May 20 – Spotlight on Mental Health

During this week’s roundtable, we zeroed in on a mental health startup. Mental health is seeing a significant uptick in the startup arena currently.

Bonding Health

Pen King from Sun Valley, Idaho and San Francisco pitched Bonding Heatlh, a digital health startup focused on managing childhood ADHD.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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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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