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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Building a SaaS Company with Operational Discipline: Betterworks CEO Kris Duggan (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What did you do after WebEx? Did you stay until when WebEx was acquired by Cisco? Kris Duggan: I left right around that time – a little after the IPO until right after the acquisition. After that, I was invited to join a DFJ-funded company to run sales globally. It was called Social
Bootstrapping to $10 Million from Helsinki, Finland: Mikko Valimaki, CEO of Tuxera (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What year was this happening? Mikko Valimaki: This happened in 2008. Sramana Mitra: The first order of business was to get an open source product going right? Mikko Valimaki: We thought this whole thing through and we figured out that it cannot be a big enough business for us to grow this company
Building a SaaS Company with Operational Discipline: Betterworks CEO Kris Duggan (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Kleiner invested $15 million in Bettelworks on a concept. It’s an unusual financing that only experienced entrepreneurs can pull off. Read how Kris is building the company. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born,
Bootstrapping to $10 Million from Helsinki, Finland: Mikko Valimaki, CEO of Tuxera (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. In our effort to bring you stories from the global startup ecosystem, here we introduce you to a wonderful success story from Finland. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what
From High School Drop Out to $20M in Revenue: Brad Lea’s Journey with Lightspeed VT (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: What is your customer acquisition strategy? Were you basically calling these people who have motivational speaking or other kinds of training programs and just direct-selling them into your technology? Brad Lea: Yes, pretty much. We would find and select a target and camp outside their office. We would knock on doors and wait until
From High School Drop Out to $20M in Revenue: Brad Lea’s Journey with Lightspeed VT (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: You were selling this particular training to car dealerships, and that became the core business for about a year. Brad Lea: Yes, I had about 50 to 60 dealerships subscribing to use my system. I realized that that recurring revenue was definitely what I wanted to focus on. What happened was, as I
From High School Drop Out to $20M in Revenue: Brad Lea’s Journey with Lightspeed VT (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the beginning of where you started the business. I’d like to understand how you built the company step by step. You said you started the company by actually delivering your own course in the beginning. How, then, did you do that business of delivering your own course? Tell us a
From High School Drop Out to $20M in Revenue: Brad Lea’s Journey with Lightspeed VT (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What is the business model? How do people pay you? Is that a SaaS kind of a business model? Brad Lea: Exactly, Software-as-a-Service. Usually, we will charge a little bit to get it set up and created. Then depending on the license type that you have, it will cost either X amount per
