Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped with Services to $175M

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  There is, of course, a myth that you cannot build a large company by bootstrapping. What a total pot of crxp! Meet TEOCO Founder CEO Atul Jain, and have your preconceptions checked and readjusted. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped TEOCO to $175M with Services

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  There is, of course, a myth that you cannot build a large company by bootstrapping. What a total pot of crxp! Meet TEOCO Founder CEO Atul Jain, and get your preconceptions checked and readjusted. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where

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Bootstrapping a $175 Million Business with Services: TEOCO CEO Atul Jain (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What percentage of the revenue would you say is BPO services? Atul Jain: We are mostly a software company. When you say professional services, do you mean to say installation and implementation kind of stuff? Sramana Mitra: No, anything that is custom where you’re not selling software. Atul Jain: We don’t do any

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Bootstrapping a $175 Million Business with Services: TEOCO CEO Atul Jain (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What happens next? Atul Jain: Since then, we have become a global company. Today, we are about 1,300 employees and doing about $175 million in revenue. We are global with 50% of our revenue coming from outside of North America. Sramana Mitra: Your target customer base is still telecom?

Bootstrapping a $175 Million Business with Services: TEOCO CEO Atul Jain (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What year are we talking about? Atul Jain: We did our first acquisition in 2006 when we were around $20 million. Over time, we have done five acquisitions and this year, our revenue is going to be about $180 million. Sramana Mitra: So in 2006, you bring in another $5 million of revenue

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Bootstrapping a $175 Million Business with Services: TEOCO CEO Atul Jain (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What timeframe are we talking about when you were $20 million in revenue in this business? Atul Jain: About 2005 to 2006 timeframe. Sramana Mitra: A $20 million dollar business and now you have a competitor that is going belly up and you buy that competitor for cash.

Bootstrapping a $175 Million Business with Services: TEOCO CEO Atul Jain (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What was the intellectual property that you bought? From whom did you buy it? Atul Jain: It was a one-person entity. I hired a person that had a bit more telecom knowledge than I did. I asked him about what I could build and he talked about doing something in the billing reconciliation

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Bootstrapping a $175 Million Business with Services: TEOCO CEO Atul Jain (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What were you consulting on? Atul Jain: I was helping them build a system for oil trading. I had developed a certain amount of expertise in doing that, so they were happy to get my expertise to help them figure out how to go about building an integrated oil trading system. I told

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