Bootstrapping Using Services from The Netherlands to a $300M+ Exit: Quintiq and ActiVote Founder Victor Allis (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What you’re describing is a track that we have called bootstrapping using services. It’s a tried-and-true path in which a lot of entrepreneurs have built companies. We have great regard for this method. The services work, I understand. The product that you were developing, what was going to be in that product? How

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Bootstrapping Using Services from The Netherlands to a $300M+ Exit: Quintiq and ActiVote Founder Victor Allis (Part 1)

Victor bootstrapped Quintiq to $30M, raised funding, and then sold the company for over $300M. ActiVote is his second startup, currently self-funded. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: When you decided to pick on, what was the process? David Chmielewski: My initial endeavors were around disputes. It was always near and dear to our hearts. For Joe, one of the other co-founders, that’s where he started. His first job was at Bank of America as a call center agent. This was

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Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Who on your team was the key sales guy? David Chmielewski: That’s Joe McLean who’s now our CEO. He was able to sell and fill clients with that confidence. I also did a fair amount of sales myself, but it was more of solutions consulting and technical design. Joe and I got into

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Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 5)

David Chmielewski: The closer you can stick to having a real product, the better you’re going to come out in the end. It’s really those first three or four clients that help refine your product and allow you to understand what’s truly different and what’s not. We had the experience at BoA. At First Tech,

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Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You knew the specs of what needed to be built. That kind of domain knowledge is invaluable. David Chmielewski: Right. We knew what we wanted to build. We already built it. Our flagship product is a dispute system. At BoA, I had already built three of them. We didn’t have a single line

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Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 3)

David Chmielewski: We established Quavo as a virtual company. We used most of the methodology that we learned at BoA. How do you run a remote company? We all decided to leave our positions and start the company. We knew our platform like what we wanted to build on. We had a general idea of

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Bootstrapping a FinTech Startup by Piggybacking with Services: Quavo Co-Founder David Chmielewski (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Why were you looking for remote work? David Chmielewski: I had found my wife at Auto Owners, got married, and didn’t want to leave. I grew up in Michigan. I still live there. I wanted to have the ability to spread my wings a little bit, but I knew it wasn’t necessarily going

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