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HOT TOPICS
- 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
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: What, specifically, in terms of levers were you able to push by investing more aggressively? What could money buy you? Venky Balasubramanian: This was around technology at that point because we were in a market where we had to move fast in terms of what we were going to be releasing. Things were changing
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: However, your per minute numbers are a premium over the carrier’s per minute numbers that you have to turn around and pay, right? Venky Balasubramanian: Technically, yes but not really. In practice if you go to a carrier directly, what you do in effect is a service running more than 10,000 minutes. Our price
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: If I were making that decision, I would have made a different decision. If I had $15,000 to $20,000 coming from two customers, I would not raise angel financing and part with equity at that point. Venky Balasubramanian: I agree, which is why I’ll get to what we did a year later. A
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Your business model was in providing consulting services, training, and support? Venky Balasubramanian: Back then, we had no plan to monetize. This was still a project for us. We had no business model. Sramana Mitra: You were based in Bangalore and Mike was based in France? Venky Balasubramanian: Yes, I was in Bangalore
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: You didn’t have comparable functionality with Twilio? Venky Balasubramanian: We actually had better functionality back then in terms of what we launched and in the framework itself. We have a lot of incoming interest from customers of Twilio who liked what they saw. It was hard to believe for a lot of folks back
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What specifically were each of you trying to do? Venky Balasubramanian: I was trying to pull ideas for my new startup back then. The first idea I had was a click-to-call. My co-founder was trying to build a framework for these IVRs. I was trying to build a framework to basically call to
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Venky Balasubramanian, CEO of Plivo (Part 1)
Venky has built a fast growing, profitable company with just $2 million in angel financing, raised as two convertible notes. Excellent navigation, and a lot to learn in the domain of smart, capital-efficient entrepreneurship. As we are bound to see the market crash in the upcoming quarters, these are the type of companies that will
Scaling to $10 Million from Kentucky: Steve Huey, CEO of Capture Higher Ed (Part 7)
Steve Huey: University of Pittsburgh is a client, and we’ve had conversations with people at Princeton. Some of these schools have more applicants than they need. What they’re chasing is the right applicant. By understanding the behaviour of students and their families, you can market to them that you can assist them in finding the information