Bootstrapping Using Services from Russia: Ruslan Fazlyev, CEO of Ecwid (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I’m going to ask you questions so that we can trace your journey of how you put this business together block by block. Tell me how you acquired your first customers for this business. Ruslan Fazlyev: We didn’t really acquire customers for our business. We got case-by-case freelance requests to build an online

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Sylvana Caridi Coche, CEO of Gravity Pro (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of this journey in 2007. You went to SAP and said you wanted to resell. Where did you go to seek your first clients? Sylvana Caridi Coche: My clients call me. I actually have to pick the clients. Usually people who start a company to do implementations

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Bootstrapping Using Services from Russia: Ruslan Fazlyev, CEO of Ecwid (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  We’ve discussed Bootstrapping Using Services extensively over the years. Ruslan used eLance (not Upwork) to source service projects, then built, first a platform+services business that scaled to over $10 million in revenue. Then he spun off a pure play e-commerce platform business that now has over

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Sylvana Caridi Coche, CEO of Gravity Pro (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Sylvana has an aura of no nonsense, no bullshit confidence about her that I find immensely attractive. Read her story to feel the force of sheer energy, smarts, and execution to learn how she did it! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself

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Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Inkling CEO Matt MacInnis (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: You said you’ve raised about $90 million. With all these changes and pivots, how has revenue in the new model tracked? Are you able to justify that kind of financing from a market cap point of view? I’m not talking about foo-foo market cap. I’m talking about market cap that is derived out

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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?

Successful Pivot from B-to-C to B-to-B: Inkling CEO Matt MacInnis (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: When you were starting to see this traction from Starbucks, KMPG, and other corporates, what kind of a business model did you follow in these deals? Matt MacInnis: We knew it was going to be SaaS. We gave Starbucks a very sweet deal. They got extra for the platform for all their district

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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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