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Multiple Pivots, Taking on Giants, to Over $100 Million in Revenue: Matthew Calkins, CEO of Appian (Part 2)

Posted on Tuesday, Apr 19th

Sramana Mitra: Let’s pause for a moment. I want to ask a few questions about your survival. Were you bootstrapping this company or were you funded? How did you manage to survive this pivot financially? Matthew Calkins: Our cash flow was quite strong. We were running a services business. We were doing a little bit

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Bootstrapping Using Services From Houston: Identity Automation CEO James Litton (Part 7)

Posted on Sunday, Mar 6th

Sramana Mitra: So you’re trying to find a mid-market niche now where you would be able to compete with these very large players. That security and identity management space for both enterprise and mid-sized enterprises is a very crowded space. I’ll tell you what bothers me about your enterprise strategy. James Litton: There’s a couple

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Bootstrapping Using Services From Houston: Identity Automation CEO James Litton (Part 6)

Posted on Saturday, Mar 5th

Sramana Mitra: The growth rate did not shift when you went from services to product? James Litton: During the transition, on some level, it probably slowed. There were some critical things that we had to go through. As an entrepreneur, it’s scary. You’re going from something that you know into a world that you don’t

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Bootstrapping Using Services From Houston: Identity Automation CEO James Litton (Part 5)

Posted on Friday, Mar 4th

Sramana Mitra: All your existing K-12 services clients came with you to this product? James Litton: Yes, because we were extremely focused on the customer. That continues to be a central part of the Identity Automation ethos. It’s not just paying lip service to it, but actually living up to that. I think the real testimony

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Bootstrapping Using Services From Houston: Identity Automation CEO James Litton (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Mar 3rd

Sramana Mitra: Was K-12 also consulting services and implementing identity management solutions kind of projects? James Litton: Yes. Keep in mind that as we were doing this, we were doing projects for all types of organizations. It’s just that the majority of them was K-12. Sramana Mitra: The business, however, were these projects? You were

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Bootstrapping Using Services From Houston: Identity Automation CEO James Litton (Part 1)

Posted on Monday, Feb 29th

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  James has built an identity management software company from Houston and now wants to go upmarket. 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 circumstances? James Litton: I am

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Bootstrapping to $100 Million Using Services from The Netherlands: Pierre and Fred Guelen, Planon Software (Part 5)

Posted on Monday, Feb 8th

Sramana Mitra: Where did you get the money to invest? Fred Guelen: That’s always the big secret, isn’t it? I had a very successful law practice and I made a lot of money as a lawyer. I was able to largely finance that with my own equity, and I also took a loan. Pierre Guelen:

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Bootstrapping to $100 Million Using Services from The Netherlands: Pierre and Fred Guelen, Planon Software (Part 4)

Posted on Sunday, Feb 7th

Sramana Mitra: What did that do to your growth? Between 2000 and 2010, how did the company grow? Pierre Guelen: We’ve always had a steady pace of growth of an average of 20% a year. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to 2010. Are we talking about just one product in the cloud architecture in 2010? Pierre

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