Solo Entrepreneur, Bootstrapping with a Paycheck and a Virtual Company: Cedric Savarese, CEO of FormAssembly (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the concept? What were you trying to do with this company when you started? Cedric Savarese: The original idea was to make the data acquisition process more accessible to stakeholders. As an IT professional, I had built quite a few forms and surveys from scratch. I was very familiar with the

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Solo Entrepreneur, Bootstrapping with a Paycheck and a Virtual Company: Cedric Savarese, CEO of FormAssembly (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Cedric’s story is a textbook case study of the kind of entrepreneur we want to see emerge and grow in every corner of the world: a solo entrepreneur who is a developer and a product guy capable of getting to validation while holding onto a day

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Learning From Mistakes: Roy Peleg, CEO of Firstimpression.io (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Once you made these vital switches, what happened? In terms of revenue, how did you do in 2015? Roy Peleg: We ended with gross revenue of $1.3 million. In the month of December, we generated $185,000. The trajectory was great. We quadrupled the revenue in 2015. Then we took on a few more

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Learning From Mistakes: Roy Peleg, CEO of FirstImpression.io (Part 1)

FirstImpression is Roy’s fourth startup. The prior ones had all failed, and Roy candidly discusses how and why they failed. There is much to learn from failures and mistakes, possibly even more than from successes. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born,

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Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: How much investment did you get from Techstars? Nevin Shetty: Techstars always puts in $100,000. Sramana Mitra: How much equity did you give for that? Nevin Shetty: Around 7%. Sramana Mitra: You raised more money coming out of Techstars?

Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: The customer acquisition is Facebook primarily? Nevin Shetty: It’s transitioning now to Pinterest. You have to think about where your users live. A lot of couples, who were recently engaged, go to Pinterest for inspiration for their wedding. As they’re looking for inspiration for their wedding, they see Blueprint there. Potentially, they come bock to Facebook

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Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Facebook is unique in its targeting capabilities. Talk about how you took advantage of that. What was the segment you were going after? What segment was converting for you? What did you learn about these nuances of positioning? Nevin Shetty: As a wedding registry, we targeted people who were engaged. Sramana Mitra: The

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Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: One clarification, both you and Liz kept your jobs while you were raising this convertible note round. For the whole time? Nevin Shetty: Yes. That’s the amazing part. It was just the two of us working part-time. From across the nation, Lizzie had moved at this point. Sramana Mitra: Where is she? Nevin

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