Scaling an Energy Management Venture: Martin Manniche, CEO of Greenwave Systems (Part 1)

Martin is a serial entrepreneur with nine startups under his belt. This story traces his journey from Copenhagen to California with a focus on his latest venture Greenwave that has already scaled to over $50 million in revenue. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were

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Building a FinTech Company in Brazil: Sergio Furio, CEO of BankFacil (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You were finding people online who were looking for loans and connecting them to financial institutions. Sergio Furio: At that point, it was even broader. We were looking for people looking for financial services in general. We were offering insurance, credit cards, and credit. We were capturing some basic information and doing some

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Building a FinTech Company in Brazil: Sergio Furio, CEO of BankFacil (Part 1)

Companies are starting to scale in Latin America. In this story, we bring you a FinTech company’s journey from its bootstrapped beginnings to validation, venture financing, and scaling. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Sergio

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Bootstrapping Using Services from Russia: Ruslan Fazlyev, CEO of Ecwid (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What did you price the Ecwid product at? Ruslan Fazlyev: The model back then was one free plan and one paid plan at $70. The pricing model is a bit different now. Sramana Mitra: $70 a month? Ruslan Fazlyev: Yes, it’s different now. Now we have premium offerings. There are paid plans at $15,

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Bootstrapping Using Services from Russia: Ruslan Fazlyev, CEO of Ecwid (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You wanted to set the company for exit. Ruslan Fazlyev: Yes. Sramana Mitra: Where did you go to look for financing? Ruslan Fazlyev: I never really looked proactively for financing. The way it worked is, Ecwid was named as the hottest technology company in Russia after winning this competition by Google and Forbes in

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Bootstrapping Using Services from Russia: Ruslan Fazlyev, CEO of Ecwid (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Not only did you have the platform but you were also offering the integrated consulting services to implement it. Ruslan Fazlyev: Yes, that was the X-Cart approach but it was not good enough for some customers. Some customers asked, “Is there any way to integrate my store into my site without ever having

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Sylvana Caridi Coche, CEO of Gravity Pro (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the business now? Do you sell mostly licenses? Sylvana Caridi Coche: I switched from 80% services and 20% license to 80% license and 20% services. The goal next year is to do more and more services. Sramana Mitra: How many people do you have now? Sylvana Caridi Coche: I have three

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Sylvana Caridi Coche, CEO of Gravity Pro (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: In the first year of business, how much did you do revenue-wise? Sylvana Caridi Coche: I did $7.5 million in revenue. Sramana Mitra: That’s incredible. Sylvana Caridi Coche: Yes, that was very unique. Sramana Mitra: That was with 20 people.