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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
Bootstrap First to $10 Million from Australia, Raise $25 Million Later from the US: Ashik Ahmed, CEO of Deputy (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: From a vertical point of view, it was all in the hospitality area? Ashik Ahmed: That’s correct – all restaurants, bars, and hotels. That was the industry we were focusing on. Sramana Mitra: How many customers are we talking? Ashik Ahmed: By the end of 2013, I believe we only had 150. Sramana
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship from Arizona: Heidi Jannenga, Co-Founder of WebPT (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about customer acquisition. What did you start with? What worked and what did you settle into as your primary customer acquisition strategy? Heidi Jannenga: It’s a funny story actually. We built our own website from the very beginning. Back in 2008, there was not a lot of competition in SEO and
Bootstrap First to $10 Million from Australia, Raise $25 Million Later from the US: Ashik Ahmed, CEO of Deputy (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: This is an Entrepreneur Journeys story. I’m going to help you tell that story as a journey. You started with this concept back in 2008 with your co-founder. What was the first thing that you did? Ashik Ahmed: Coming up with the name. To be honest, I resigned from Aero-Care in February 2007 because I
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship from Arizona: Heidi Jannenga, Co-Founder of WebPT (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s do this story a bit more as a journey. What year did you face the problem that you needed some sort of a system for managing your physical therapy practice? Heidi Jannenga: It was an ongoing problem from 2003 to 2008 where the company that I was working with had promised that
Bootstrap First to $10 Million from Australia, Raise $25 Million Later from the US: Ashik Ahmed, CEO of Deputy (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later is the 1M/1M mantra. Ashik Ahmed tells his story of bootstrapping to $10 Million before raising $25 Million in the first external financing. Sramana Mitra: Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Let’s
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship from Arizona: Heidi Jannenga, Co-Founder of WebPT (Part 1)
Heidi and her co-founder have bootstrapped WebPT to significant traction, then raised a small angel round. 2016 revenue was $40 million. The company has sold 51% stake to private equity and the founders have already experienced significant liquidity. Excellent story of a female entrepreneur who doesn’t make excuses. She just executes. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start
Bootstrapping to $30 Million from Czech Republic: Vaclav Muchna, CEO of YSoft (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: Have you started seeing revenues escalate from that yet? Vaclav Muchna: In the United States, this year we are going to be close to $3 million. Our business has a very long sales cycle. We expect that the bigger revenue growth is going to happen next year. Sramana Mitra: You said you did
Bootstrapping Using Services to an Awesome Business Model: Inspyrus CEO Nilay Banker (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: You have a tremendous revenue stream. Where are you now? How far along are you? Nilay Banker: We are getting into the tens of millions of dollars. We are doubling every year in revenue. Sramana Mitra: How many people? Nilay Banker: Now, we are close to 50 people. Almost everybody is in the US.
