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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
Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What does it mean when you say they distribute? Do they distribute your component or do they distribute the fully-integrated solution of these gas cylinders that have self-monitoring and self-updating capacity? Bob Witter: When we started, we were only a device provider. We helped them find the resources to build out the solution
Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: When did you hit upon this as a key go-to-market strategy for sourcing projects and being brought into projects? Bob Witter: It was specific to these vendors. These are the relationships that we started to build in the first couple of years of our operation. We knew a lot of these vendors through our
Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Can we double-click down on what exactly happened in the first couple of years? It sounds like you started with a hypothesis and that didn’t get any traction in the market. You had to pivot. How did you figure out what to pivot to? What happened? What struck the cord? Bob Witter: We
Scaling an Educational Services Business to $50 Million: Todd Zipper, CEO of Learning House (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: You have to pick and choose the partner that you go to business with because you’re basically risk sharing. You both have to invest to get a new brand up and running. Todd Zipper: Yes. That’s where our expertise comes in around leveraging the brand that already exists and trying to cater to
Bootstrapping an IoT Company from North Carolina: Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. North Carolina, at one point, had a large concentration of cellular technology companies. Today, some of that talent has come together around IoT. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what
Scaling an Educational Services Business to $50 Million: Todd Zipper, CEO of Learning House (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Going from curriculum to a more broad soup-to-nuts set of services and, accordingly, raising the percentage of the royalties that you get paid is a massive strategic move. Todd Zipper: It’s risky. I’d like to say we are in the private equity game because I’m going to be a million dollars in before
Scaling an Educational Services Business to $50 Million: Todd Zipper, CEO of Learning House (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Is there a particular subject material or type of degree that you specialize in? Todd Zipper: Good question. We are, essentially, generalists. Initially, my thesis when I saw the opportunity at Learning House was that I didn’t want to work with one particular subject area. Let’s say, teaching. That’s a big program online. Another big
Scaling an Educational Services Business to $50 Million: Todd Zipper, CEO of Learning House (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Who are the customers? Is this something that you sell as a software solution to other education institutions who are trying to launch or run an online program or are you actually running this as an outsourced service on behalf of these educational institutions who have a brand? What is the business model? Todd
