Bootstrapping to $20 Million From London: Guy Mucklow, CEO of PCA Predict (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Guy has bootstrapped his company to $20 million, and last Christmas, turned down a $100 million acquisition offer. Read how he has navigated his venture. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from?

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Bootstrapping to $13 Million with Freemium and Free Trials: SurveyGizmo CEO Christian Vanek (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Christian has bootstrapped SurveyGizmo to $13 million from Boulder, Colorado. He has experimented with both freemium and free trial, and has managed to monetize nicely. Read more about the strategies that have worked for him. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey.

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Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: People do comparison shopping all the time. Steve Yi: Exactly. Amazon does the same thing. When you look for a product on Amazon, they will actually have listings for competitive retailers. It’s a combination of insurance revenue and understanding that there is media revenue from your property that you can extract. In turn,

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Building a Global Enterprise Software Company from Belgium: Felix Van de Maele, CEO of Collibra (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Where are you now revenue-wise? Felix Van de Maele: We’re getting close to $20 million. Sramana Mitra: You said you’re already profitable? Felix Van de Maele: We were profitable over the last two years but then made the decision to grow the company.

Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of your operating expenses, how many people were involved and what kind of a P&L did you have to support within that operating margin? Steve Yi: There was three of us. One person was working with us as a contractor who eventually became our VP of Sales. Sramana Mitra: How many customers were

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Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 5)

Steve Yi: We were fortunate to become profitable within the second month. For that first month, we thought we could never make that math work. We were losing a lot of money in that first month. It’s specific to this business. You just have to go through that period where you’re willing to lose money. Sramana Mitra: You

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Building a Global Enterprise Software Company from Belgium: Felix Van de Maele, CEO of Collibra (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Your positioning is to help with data consistency. Felix Van de Maele: Yes, data consistency, data understanding, and data compliance. Sramana Mitra: Who is your direct competitor? Felix Van de Maele: The biggest competitor is really doing nothing. It’s not a replacement sale. What we replace is Excel, SharePoint, and Word. It’s a

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Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Each of you had worked on this travel startup before, and you had sold this startup. You got a little bit of money and were willing to put some of that money into starting something else as a collective group. Steve Yi: That’s exactly right. You said it much better and succinctly than

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