Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What happens next? Paresh Patel: We started to prepare the company for scale. We had just received our Series A. We got $12 million in the bank. I first hired a COO and then a CFO. We opened up a new office. We messed up. We hired too fast and too big. Too

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559th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting NOW: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 559th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting NOW, on Thursday, January 13, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST. Click HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

559th Roundtable For Entrepreneurs Starting In 30 Minutes: Live Tweeting By @1Mby1M

Today’s 559th FREE online 1Mby1M Roundtable For Entrepreneurs is starting in 30 minutes, on Thursday, January 13, at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST/5 p.m. CET/9:30 p.m. India IST. Click HERE to join. PASSWORD: startup  All are welcome!

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: The form factor of your product was that you would just clip it on a retail machine? Paresh Patel: The design was remarkably simple. It almost works like a thumb drive. You just take the device and plug it into the machine. In three seconds, it could take that legacy machine and convert

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I’ve experienced the use case that you described. The gas station around the corner from me doesn’t have any digital payment option. Paresh Patel: That was the problem. The machine only took cash. Sramana Mitra: Do the gas station people attend these kinds of trade shows?‘

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What is your Ph.D. in? Paresh Patel: It’s also in e-business and organization management. Sramana Mitra: The vending machine company was yourself? Paresh Patel: There were employees. We grew to about 25 employees.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Oregon: Paresh Patel, CEO of PayRange (Part 1)

Paresh did a superb job of validating in a bootstrapped mode and then raising significant venture capital. However, he made some mistakes after the fund raise. Eventually, he course-corrected and has built a wonderful business without further infusion of capital. Excellent case study! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where

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Bootstrapping by Piggybacking: Evenica CEO Sadek Ali (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: If you tried to go into the Shopify marketplace with another e-commerce platform, that wouldn’t work. That was not an option. You were trying to build your own e-commerce platform. Sadek Ali: Shopify is a long-tail play. Sramana Mitra: Shopify, on many levels, is not the right marketplace for you. Sadek Ali: Shopify

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