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- The Startup Velocity Question
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Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Venture: Elite Fixtures CEO Steven Annese (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Did you know anything about the lighting business? Steven Annese: I didn’t but my sister was working at a lighting distributor. She told me that there were some companies that were trying to do business with them in the online world. That’s actually where my lead came from so I have to thank
Bootstrapping a Niche E-Commerce Venture: Elite Fixtures CEO Steven Annese (Part 1)
I’ve always been bullish about niche e-commerce. Here’s yet another story of an entrepreneur who has successfully bootstrapped a company in high-end light fixtures. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Steven Annese: I’m a child
Bootstrapping Using Services: Bay Dynamics Co-Founders Feris Rifai and Ryan Stolte (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: Talk about the new product, and how did you identify the new product definition? How did you achieve product market fit? Ryan Stolte: Through this relationship we had and the amount of breadth of customers that we were exposed to, we did get in front of a lot of these customers. They would
Bootstrapping Using Services: Bay Dynamics Co-Founders Feris Rifai and Ryan Stolte (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: How did you price this new product? Feris Rifai: The original OEM agreement started out as a royalty fee. The Symantec folks were selling it directly to the client. That grew from there to cover more of the Symantec portfolio of products. It also grew to Symantec actually including it in their product
Bootstrapping Using Services: Bay Dynamics Co-Founders Feris Rifai and Ryan Stolte (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Let me see if I got this. You had a bunch of partners and you were doing value-added type of work for these people? Ferris Rifai: It was not reselling. It was more services-focused. They would use us as an extension. Sramana Mitra: In that process of doing integration and consulting, it sounds
Bootstrapping Using Services: Bay Dynamics Co-Founders, Feris Rifai and Ryan Stolte (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What year did you start this consulting company? Ryan Stolte: 2001. Feris Rifai: Precisely on October 16, 2001. Sramana Mitra: You did analytics consulting. How long did you continue in this consulting mode? Ferris Rifai: When we first started, we started with consulting in analytics and, in parallel, information security and IT. What we saw
Bootstrapping Using Services: Bay Dynamics Co-Founders Feris Rifai and Ryan Stolte (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: You were Head of Technology there and Feris joined as the Head of Sales? Feris Rifai: Yes, I joined as Head of Sales and Business Development at that time. Sramana Mitra: What is the name of the company? Ryan Stolte: The company is called Caspio. Sramana Mitra: Caspio is still around? Ryan Stolte: It
Bootstrapping Using Services: Bay Dynamics Co-Founders Feris Rifai and Ryan Stolte (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Just one little piece of information, did the previous company where you were head of sales exit? Feris Rifai: Yes, it was a sale to another company. Sramana Mitra: Was it a good exit? Did you make money off that company? Feris Rifai: Yes, it wasn’t just through the exit. I had done