categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
E-Commerce
Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn in Online Real Estate: Auction.com CEO Jeff Frieden (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: You bought these parcels of land and you ran this auction. What was the outcome of the auction? Jeff Frieden: We made a million dollars in one day. Sramana Mitra: Oh, wow! Terrific! Jeff Frieden: There were thousands of people there betting competitively on this land. It was the 1987 to 1988 timeframe.
Building an SMB SaaS Business: Stitch Labs CEO Brandon Levey (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: What turn did the product take? Brandon Levey: From a positioning standpoint, we had evolved to a real SMB solution. We would now position it much more as a multi-channel inventory order management solution for SMBs. The way that I like to think of the solution at the lowest layer is the management layer.
Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: How does your work play in to the work of the SaaS providers like Aria? They are managing the online SaaS billing. Christian Blume: They’re managing a broader spectrum in a much stronger niche market. What do I mean by that? They go into any type of service that could be a subscription,
Building an SMB SaaS Business: Stitch Labs CEO Brandon Levey (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: It was a monthly recurring revenue though, right? It was a SaaS product? Brandon Levey: Correct. It was the same model basically. In January of 2013, we hired Josh who used to consult small businesses. In March, we hired our first customer support rep who’s now a product manager at Stitch. That’s when
Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: Was it a very profitable situation right from the beginning? Christian Blume: This is the interesting part. When we started the business, we always said, “We’re only going to enter actual business opportunities if there’s a win-win situation.” I would never have signed off on any kind of deal in order to buy market
Building an SMB SaaS Business: Stitch Labs CEO Brandon Levey (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: You said that until 2013, things were really cash-strapped but it sounds like you were picking up customers and that you were getting validation for your thesis at some level. Brandon Levey: Correct. By the fall of 2011, we had about 60 customers. I think our total revenue was $500 a month. That
Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: The natural question that comes to my mind based on what you just said is, how do you price? Christian Blume: Our business model is, we take a share of the transaction. If somebody wants to work with us, they only pay for actual performance. There are no upfront setup fees. Nobody has to
Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Now that we’ve gone through the background analysis, position the product for me. Which customers are you going after? Specifically, what was the value proposition that you were going to deliver? Christian Blume: We didn’t want to deliver a me-too product because there had been so many go’s at this already over the
