Building a Venture Scale Enterprise AI Company from Spain: David Villalon, CEO of Maisa (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Double-click down on where you were — what use case you were applying this knowledge processing unit workflow to?

David Villalon: In the early days, that was one of the biggest questions we had to solve.

Sramana Mitra: For your startup, that’s always the biggest question you have to solve.

Featured Videos

Why Stealth Mode Kills More Startups Than It Saves

I want to share with you an observation from running the 1Mby1M program since 2008. Almost 700 free mentoring roundtables with over 300k entrepreneurs. Thousands of case studies of successful entrepreneurs – the who’s who of tech startups – through interview based methodology development. Thousands and thousands of premium member coaching sessions.

Some entrepreneurs are over-anxious about confidentiality. 

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Building a Venture Scale Enterprise AI Company from Spain: David Villalon, CEO of Maisa (Part 1)

David discusses his journey building an enterprise AI venture with 15 large enterprise customers who are implementing real use cases built on the Maisa platform. These use cases are not POC experiments. They are in production. The customer base currently is mostly European enterprises. This is going to be a very valuable company.

Video FAQs

Building a Startup Is a Marathon Not a Sprint

I want to share with you an observation from running the 1Mby1M program since 2008. Almost 700 free mentoring roundtables with over 300k entrepreneurs. Thousands of case studies of successful entrepreneurs – the who’s who of tech startups – through interview based methodology development. Thousands and thousands of premium member coaching sessions.

A lot of entrepreneurs are looking for silver bullets. 

They are not necessarily interested in doing the hard work needed to build a sustainable business. 

Building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. 

We don’t have silver bullets. No one does. 

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $30 Million from Florida

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 concentration in Finance and Marketing. Shortly after that, I moved out to San Francisco and worked for an investment bank in the online media practice. That’s the quick summary of my initial upbringing.

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Building an AI EdTech Company: College Guidance Network CEO Jon Carson (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. Was there an inflection point that you experienced as you built the business?

Jon Carson: I think I’m in it right now.

Sramana Mitra: You are in it right now? Tell me more.

AI Startup Case Studies and Courses with Coupons

Artificial intelligence continues to be one of the most transformative forces in technology and some of the most successful startups are emerging directly from this wave of innovation. Our latest set of courses explores how founders across industries are building, bootstrapping and scaling AI ventures that solve real-world problems.

In How to Build AI / Machine Learning Startups, you’ll learn the fundamentals of identifying market needs, validating ideas and architecting scalable AI business models. How to Bootstrap an AI Startup First and Blitzscale Later takes you through the proven 1Mby1M philosophy of building sustainably before chasing hypergrowth.

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October 23rd – 705th 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 705th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, October 23, 2025, at 8 a.m. PDT / 11 a.m. EDT / 5 p.m. CEST / 8:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to Pitch and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to Attend to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be Interested.