Bootstrapping Using Services from Helsinki: Juha Lehtonen, CEO of FA Solutions (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: All your early customers were in Finland? Juha Lehtonen: Yes, the early customers were local. Once we were up and running, it took us about a year and a half to launch the product. We did it very gradually. Around 2008, we heard that there was a couple of Swedish guys in sales

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Bootstrapping Using Services from Helsinki: Juha Lehtonen, CEO of FA Solutions (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What were the deal sizes? Juha Lehtonen: It was very little – annual fees of €20,000. It was more like an advertisement for us. In addition to developing the platform, we did quite a lot of projects. We needed to self-finance. After the initial investment, we didn’t raise any other capital. That was

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Bootstrapping Using Services from Helsinki: Juha Lehtonen, CEO of FA Solutions (Part 1)

European companies often follow a methodical, deliberate approach to business building as opposed to mindlessly chasing venture capital. Juha has used the principles of bootstrapping using services to build his venture from Finland. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised and in

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Bootstrapping Using Services to a Fabulous Exit from Ohio: Gathi Analytics CEO Vamsi Kora (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: There are some pedagogy that we have come to understand. As I told you, I’ve done thousands of case studies. I have a lot of insight into how people have played their hands. Because you have domain knowledge, a very common way is to verticalize and go after specific verticals. Vamsi Kora: That’s

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Bootstrapping Using Services to a Fabulous Exit from Ohio: Gathi Analytics CEO Vamsi Kora (Part 3)

Vamsi Kora: We decided to focus on our core strength, which is leveraging platforms and products that exist in the marketplace and leverage our services that we built so far, keep maturing them, and provide these as accelerators. In that sense, this is more akin to the business approach of Palantir. You bring two critical

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Bootstrapping Using Services to a Fabulous Exit from Ohio: Gathi Analytics CEO Vamsi Kora (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you stay with Nationwide? Vamsi Kora: I stayed until 2007. I became a full-time employee in an initial management position. Then in 2007, I moved across town to join JP Morgan. JP Morgan bought Bank One. I kept on growing in my career rapidly. I felt that my two interests

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Bootstrapping Using Services to a Fabulous Exit from Ohio: Gathi Analytics CEO Vamsi Kora (Part 1)

Vamsi has bootstrapped Gathi to over $26M in revenue in four years and exited at a fabulous multiple. Much to learn from his journey. 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?

Bootstrapping Using Services, then Raising $10M and Scaling to $16M: EZOPS Co-Founders Sarva Srinivasan and Dutt Chintalapati (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In 2018, are you still self-financed? Sarva Srinivasan: Yes. At the end of 2018, we did a Series A.  Sramana Mitra: How much did you raise? Sarva Srinivasan: $10 million.