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- 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 to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: In 2005, you were at about $1.2 million in revenue. In 2009, you were already on Inc. 5000. What was the revenue ramp? Ernie Bray: In 2009, we went to $8 million. Sramana Mitra: Where are you now? Ernie Bray: We’re pushing towards $15 million. We also made Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500. We
Long Journey in Healthcare: Canadian Entrepreneurs Matthew Sappern and Emily Hamilton of PeriGen (Part 1)
Perigen is an amalgamation of a couple of different companies. This story relates how the entrepreneurs navigated a long journey. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by telling us a little bit about your personal background. I’d like to do that with both of you since you are co-founders. Matthew Sappern: Just for clarity’s sake, Emily developed
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Essentially, the $400,000 in the first year was from about 8 to 10 deals? Ernie Bray: Yes. We had about 8 to 10 clients. Sramana Mitra: These were clients that would remain as recurring revenue clients, because they would continue to use your system and the pricing model is based on number of
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: When you were actually processing claims, what did you see that triggered this idea? Ernie Bray: What I saw was that claims technology systems were outdated. They were just green screen technologies at that time. I’ll give you an example. When I was looking at AAA, appraisers would go out and take photographs of
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 2)
Ernie Bray: After three years, we ended up shutting down the business. It was my first taste of starting something on my own from scratch. We didn’t make much money, but during that time we didn’t know how to monetize something on the Internet. This was new, but it was the thing that clicked for me.
Bootstrapping to $15 Million: Ernie Bray, CEO of ACD (Part 1)
Ernie leveraged his domain knowledge in auto insurance claims processing, and has built a robust, sustainable business. He uses a virtual workforce strategy to scale. 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 circumstances? Ernie Bray: I was
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: You sell apparel through them or shoes? Katie Echeverry: Apparel. Sramana Mitra: That’s awesome actually. Katie Echeverry: It is. I really knew nothing about wholesale. They were so patient with me with all the terminologies. I remember saying, “What’s EDI?” They were very patient and have taught me a lot. I couldn’t have
Bootstrapping With A Paycheck: Katie Echeverry, CEO of Unique Vintage (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: At what point did you introduce alternate channels like eBay and Amazon? Katie Echeverry: I brought eBay into the mix in 2003. We were doing so well in 2006 to 2007 that I stopped, because I couldn’t manage two platforms. This was before there were a lot of connector tools that can keep