Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later to $120M from Colorado: Madwire CEO JB Kellogg (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What happens in 2019? JB Kellogg: We built the third version and released at the end of 2019. We’re excited about that because it truly makes us more of a technology company than we’ve ever been. Now we have do-it-yourself (DIY) functionality, and not just do-it-for-me (DIFM).

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later to $120M from Colorado: Madwire CEO JB Kellogg (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was the revenue level in 2014? What was the split between product and service? JB Kellogg: $20 million at that point. The mix was somewhere around 20% product and 80% services. Sramana Mitra: Was it still bootstrapped?

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later to $120M from Colorado: Madwire CEO JB Kellogg (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you continue in this services mode? JB Kellogg: From 2009 to 2012. Sramana Mitra: What revenue level did you reach in this mode? JB Kellogg: I think that in 2012, our revenue was somewhere around $5 million. 

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later to $120M from Colorado: Madwire CEO JB Kellogg (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How did you acquire customers for your digital marketing? JB Kellogg: We always say that we eat our own dog food. Everything that we do for ourselves is what we sell to our customers. We started doing digital marketing for ourselves which generated leads. We would call those leads and open those accounts.

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later to $120M from Colorado: Madwire CEO JB Kellogg (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  This story discusses all sorts of interesting nuances, including DIFM vs. DIY. Read on. 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 with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: You are in Chicago and Warsaw? Stefan Batory: Today we have offices in San Francisco, Chicago, Orlando, Tampa, and San Antonio in the US. We have offices in Warsaw and a few other cities across the country. We are also in Sao Paulo, Johannesburg, and in Madrid. These are the markets that we

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Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did you acquire this very fragmented customer base? Stefan Batory: Initially, we weren’t been thinking about that because we were supposed to work with that partner from southeast Florida who was supposed to acquire clients for us.

Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I thought you were trying to reposition the taxi company to doing a marketplace. How did you get to the software house? Stefan Batory: I did not reposition the taxi business. I just kept it growing. At the same time, I was also running a small division of the software development house, which

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