Roundtable Recap: March 20 – How Large Companies Address Existential Threats

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Sumant Mandal, Managing Director at March Capital Partners, a firm that invests largely in enterprise facing businesses with deep technical differentiation. The conversation includes excellent insights into the changing dynamics of the networking space and how companies like Cisco and Juniper are managing their existential threats.

V Words!
Then, Tim Lieu from California pitched V Words! a mobile game that he wishes to raise money for. Unfortunately, games don’t get funded unless there is proven traction.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Featured Videos

Roundtable Recap: March 14 – Do NOT Write Software Without a Business Model Hypothesis

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest David Lambert, Managing Director at Right Side Capital Management, a firm that invests small chunks of capital in capital efficient ventures. The firm is very much in line with the Bootstrapping to Exit philosophy we’ve been discussing.

Mopstar
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Ajay Nagar from Frisco, Texas, pitching Mopstar. The company has started generating small amounts of revenue from early customers, and shows good early promise.

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Roundtable Recap: March 7 – Fascinating Ventures with Good Early Traction

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Rahul Chowdhri, Investor at Stellaris Venture Partners, who shared some fascinating examples of consumer ventures catering to the next 400 million consumers in India.

Neeman’s
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had 1Mby1M Premium member Taran Chhabra from Hyderabad, India, pitching Neeman’s, a new shoe brand that is getting great traction in the Indian market.

Tibot
Next, Faisal Basar and Shahid Bandarkar from San Francisco, California, pitched Tibot, an AI-powered telehealth app to support dermatology care.

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Video FAQs

Roundtable Recap: February 28 – Pay Attention to Physical Experiences, Not Just Digital

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at Union Square Ventures. We discussed her firm’s capital efficient investment thesis and debated the pros and cons of blitzscaling.

Wellnesys
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first Muralidhar Somisetty from Bangalore, India, pitched Wellnesys, a digital powered yoga mat to help corporations offer personalized wellness services to their employees. We discussed business model and pricing model as it pertains to validation.

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Roundtable Recap: February 20 – Think Through Your Working Capital Needs

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Swapna Gupta, Senior Investment Manager, Qualcomm Ventures, who explained the firm’s investment strategy.

Zodhya
As for entrepreneur pitches, up first we had Rohith Pallerla from Hyderabad, India, pitching Zodhya, a hardware device that optimizes energy consumption in commercial air-conditioning systems. Zodhya already has paying customers. However, the company needs to address flaws in its working capital strategy that stems from the current pricing model. Very interesting and instructive discussion that entrepreneurs should listen to and learn from.

Qlicket
Next, Vivek Kumar from San Francisco, California, pitched Qlicket, a blue collar workforce retention solution, also with paying customers.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrap First and Raise Money Later

I wrote a book called Billion Dollar Unicorns a few years back. Writing this book took me through the extensive process of talking to entrepreneurs who have built tech companies with valuations above a billion dollars. While there is a tremendous amount of serendipity involved in any extraordinary success story, one recurring theme comes up in these case studies. I am particularly excited to share this nugget because it applies broadly to all classes of entrepreneurial ventures.

Bootstrap first, raise money later.

That’s what Fred Luddy did when he founded ServiceNow back in 2005. Leveraging his domain knowledge and expertise in IT ServiceDesk software, he rapidly acquired 12 customers before raising funding. Initially, he started charging $25 per seat and the 12 customers paid up. He raised $2.5 million in venture capital WITH 12 customers, and ample validation.

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Roundtable Recap: February 14 – A Discussion on the Indian B-to-B SaaS Opportunity with Yash Hemeraj of Arka Labs

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Yash Hemaraj, Founding Partner at Arka Venture Labs and Partner at Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV). Arka has recently partnered with 1Mby1M to accelerate Indian B-to-B SaaS companies.

SnapSupport
We then had Madhu Augustine, a 1Mby1M Premium member from the San Francisco Bay Area, pitch SnapSupport, a revenue generating B-to-B SaaS company.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Roundtable Recap: January 31 – Perspective From Mumbai Angels Network

During this week’s roundtable, we had as our guest Nandini Mansinghka, CEO and Managing Director at Mumbai Angels Network, one of the oldest angel networks in India.

Ownkicks
For pitches, first up, we had Lance Troh, from Avon, Connecticut, pitch OwnKicks, a marketplace for shoes and sneakers.

Emerge Co-Lab
Next, we had Kemo A’akhutera from Dayton, Ohio, pitch Emerge Co-Lab, a co-working space for under served entrepreneurs.

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