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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
Bootstrapping Using Services First, Raising Money Later: Rohyt Belani, CEO of PhishMe (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Walk us through the process of building the company. You spun the company off at what point? Did you already have clients when you spun it off? Rohyt Belani: We did. We had about 20 customers at that point. It was a tightrope walk. As you can imagine, a product company in its
Bootstrapping Using Services First, Raising Money Later: Rohyt Belani, CEO of PhishMe (Part 3)
Rohyt Belani: Just to lay it out, Farm Stone was acquired by McAfee. I worked there. Then I worked at Mandiant, which was acquired by FireEye. The group I had founded with Aaron was also acquired in 2012. Along that journey at Intrepidus, we had already come up with the product idea for founding PhishMe.
Bootstrapping Using Services First, Raising Money Later: Rohyt Belani, CEO of PhishMe (Part 2)
Rohyt Belani: Here I am on a student visa with eight weeks to go till graduation, and I was starting to scramble for a job. Then, I just ran into a job. I ran into a gentleman, literally, in the hallways of Carnegie-Mellon. I was introduced via email to him. He was an Adjunct Professor. He
Bootstrapping Using Services First, Raising Money Later: Rohyt Belani, CEO of PhishMe (Part 1)
Following up on our ‘Bootstrapping Using Services‘ and ‘Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later’ case studies, here’s the story of PhishMe, a cyber security company that has scaled nicely. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Rohyt
Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: Aytekin Tank, CEO of JotForm (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Were you seeing the same kind of conversion levels from free to premium? Aytekin Tank: I can’t actually recall the numbers right now. Sramana Mitra: This is a very big question. Whenever people are doing freemium products, it’s a question that we ask. It’s something that people are trying to understand. What are
Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: Aytekin Tank, CEO of JotForm (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Did the market accept that you had a better product? Aytekin Tank: Yes. Sramana Mitra: Who were the competitors that you faced at that point? Aytekin Tank: JotForm came out in February 2006. Before that, there were many forms products. All these products had old interfaces. Most of them are not very popular
Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: Aytekin Tank, CEO of JotForm (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What was the revenue level when you quit your job and went full-time with the business? Aytekin Tank: It was a little higher than my salary, but it wasn’t too high. Sramana Mitra: I can’t gauge from that. What are we talking? Are we talking $10,000 a month? Aytekin Tank: It was less
Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: Aytekin Tank, CEO of Jotform (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study my free Bootstrapping course. Aytekin is a Turkish entrepreneur who has bootstrapped his company with a paycheck. He has used a freemium business model, and a virtual team strategy to scale. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where were you born, raised, and in what