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- The Startup Velocity Question
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Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What was the startup in 1981 and what was the environment in which that startup was coming together? Paula Tompkins: It was a very interesting time, around the birth of the personal computer. Adam Osborne had introduced his luggable computer. It was a CPM machine. The man that I went to work for
Connected Medical Devices from France: Visiomed CEO Olivier Hua (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Connected Medical Devices is an emerging trend in Healthcare. Read on to see how a company from France has been navigating and pushing that trend. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and
Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Paula Tompkins started her bootstrapped digital marketing venture in 1985. She has navigated massive industry level shifts, three significant downturns, and has managed to remain relevant. The company today does $20M+ in annual revenue. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where
Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: How did you find your investors? Manick Bhan: Most of the investors that we were connected to came through our networks. Along the way, we went to various events. I don’t recommend going to all of the tech events, but sometimes, some of them are good. You know which ones are good because
Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: What happens next? Manick Bhan: We figured out how to rub these two stones together and kept building up this small fire. We were doing maybe $50,000 in sales a month and slowly growing. By the end of the year, we had hit $1 million ARR (Annual Revenue Rate). In that process, we
Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s get back to the specifics of how you did it. Now that you are in the market, you have figured out that you can get to a million dollar run rate. What was the reason why people were buying from you versus these other players? You had all kinds of hypothesis intellectualizing
Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: How did you get your MVP out? Before you got any seed funding, I take it that you had to get an MVP launched and get some customers going. Manick Bhan: Yes. Sramana Mitra: That’s how the industry works. There are exceptions. Usually, first-time entrepreneurs are not exceptions. I’m just trying to see
Bootstrapped First, Raise Money Later: Manick Bhan, CEO of Rukkus (Part 3)
Manick Bhan: At a high level, the preparation included me learning how to code. I had spent about nine months on that. I spent a lot of time in my apartment staring at a blinking cursor on a black background. Every time I hit an error, I put that error into Google to figure out what