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.

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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