Sramana Mitra: Let me actually probe each of those points a bit. Did you, at this point, become an e-commerce site? Were people ordering online? Belisario Rosas: No. We barely, to this date, do any type of e-commerce. All of it is solution-based and face-to-face selling. Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about solution service infrastructure
Sramana Mitra: How much are we talking? What kind of capital base did you start with? Peter Lehrman: About a million. Sramana Mitra: How did you bring this two-sided marketplace together? There’s always a chicken and egg in marketplaces. What was your strategy to bridge that? Peter Lehrman: We built two products and launched them
Sramana Mitra: What state was Wrike at when you came to Silicon Valley? Did you have something? Did you have an MVP that you started to work on? Andrew Filev: It was a very early prototype. I think we launched a beta version at a conference in Paris. Then right after that, I moved to the
Sramana Mitra: You were doing, more or less, the same thing that the company you were working for was doing? Belisario Rosas: Yes, very much. We just continued accepting clients that we were dealing with or looking for new clients. Sramana Mitra: How did that ramp? Belisario Rosas: Like I said earlier, we started with
Sramana Mitra: In the event that you’re using equity as a financial instrument, is the expectation exit or do you also do dividend style financing? Peter Lehrman: We don’t do any of it. We’re the platform that connects the entrepreneurs with the investors. Those decisions are determined by the investors in partnership with the entrepreneurs
Sramana Mitra: Let’s do this a bit chronologically. You finished college in what year? Andrew Filev: A little bit more than a decade ago, I think. Sramana Mitra: The Internet was in full swing in 2005. You were still in Russia at this point? Andrew Filev: Yes, I was still in Russia. I was eager
We hear a lot from Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs. We hear some from Europeans. But thus far, not as much from Latin American entrepreneurs. Belisario Rosas is Peruvian, and is also interested in fostering further entrepreneurship in Latin America. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from?
Capital marketplaces are quite the trend these days. This story traces the evolution of Axial. This is a very different marketplace from AngelList. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with some context and background of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Peter Lehrman: I was