Bootstrapping to $30 Million from Florida: SproutLoud CEO Jared Shusterman (Part 1)

SproutLoud CEO Jared Shusterman shared his wonderful bootstrapping story with me in 2017.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Jared Shusterman: I was born in Miami, Florida. I’m one of the few South Florida natives. I grew up in a middle class family that had a very heavy focus on education. After I graduated high school, I went to the University of Virginia. I got a Bachelors degree with a Finance and Marketing concentration. Shortly after that, I moved out to San Francisco and worked for an >>>

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Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Daniel Gulati, Comcast Ventures (Part 1)

Excellent discussion on the e-commerce startup trends and what can and cannot be venture financed at this stage, and why.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as Comcast Ventures.

Daniel Gulati: I’m currently a Principal of Comcast Ventures based here in San Francisco. I focus 100% of my time on seed and early stage investments in consumer internet companies. About half of my work is in e-commerce and marketplaces. The other half is everything else within consumer Internet – digital media, social media, mobile. Prior to joining Comcast Ventures, I was actually on the operating side. >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Chris Astle, CEO of QSR (Part 1)

A point of view on Big Data from Australia.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as QSR. Please set some context for us.

Chris Astle: Thank you for inviting me to participate. I’m the CEO of QSR International. QSR International is a software publisher of a product called NVivo. We provide software that helps organizations look at the human aspects of their data and help them to understand the insights that make decisions powerful. Our business is 30 years young. We originally came out of a university here in Australia. >>>

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Thought Leaders in Big Data: Paul Nelson, Chief Architect at Search Technologies (Part 1)

This discussion highlights a set of open problems in Big Data.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Search Technologies.

Paul Nelson: I’m the Chief Architect for Search Technologies. Search Technologies is a global search engine and Big Data firm. We specialize in search engines, search engine installation, and anything related to data processing. We have some 200 consultants around the world, and we also do a bit of product development usually to fill in key missing components in the industry. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Blake Garrett, CEO of Aceable (Part 1)

Blake discusses a unique area of online education: training for licenses of various kinds of vehicles, etc. using mobile apps.

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

Blake Garrett: I’m the Founder of Aceable. Aceable is focused on licensure and certification training. We created a mobile-first platform that allows people to take licensure and certification training every year. We want to be the platform that they go through for that training to help advance their careers. We started with a very niche area of >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Ten-X VP of Data Products, Sheridan Hitchens (Part 1)

This discussion focuses on Big Data in the real estate industry.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself and Ten-X.

Sheridan Hitchens: I’ve been in the industry for about 20 years. I started off my career with Procter & Gamble. I was in strategy consulting for a long while. For the last 12 years, I’ve been in the Internet space, primarily in leading product and data groups.

For the last five years, I’ve been heading up our data products group at Ten-X, formerly called auction.com. That >>>

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Devin Johnson, CEO of FirstMile (Part 1)

Logistics is becoming a key battleground for e-commerce companies, especially with Amazon setting a sky-high bar. Devin discusses the trends and where his company adds value.

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

Devin Johnson: I’m the Founder and CEO of FirstMile. We’re based out of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sramana Mitra: What is FirstMile’s business? >>>

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Ashish Sharma, Principal at Axtria (Part 1)

Ashish focuses on Big Data in Life Sciences.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as to Axtria.

Ashish Sharma: Thanks for the opportunity. Axtria is a global Big Data analytics company. Our main focus is around the life sciences and financial services industries. In those two focus areas, we empower them to optimize their business strategies or their investments by optimizing their investment around both Big Data and advanced analytics. >>>