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HOT TOPICS
- 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
Serial Entrepreneur from Alberta, Canada: Michael Sikorsky, CEO of Robots and Pencils (Part 1)
The story of a serial entrepreneur from an off-center place, this time Alberta, Canada. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Michael Sikorsky: I was born in Alberta, which is in Canada in 1972. I’m
Bootstrapping From Oklahoma: Robin Smith, CEO of WeGoLook (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What would the platform do? What was the idea? Robin Smith: The idea behind it was really crowdsourcing. This was even before Uber. Even Dave Berkus calls us as the Uber of inspections. I had this idea to create a platform that would connect agents out in the field. I tried to think of
Bootstrapping From Oklahoma: Robin Smith, CEO of WeGoLook (Part 1)
How often do you hear of a successful entrepreneurship story out of Oklahoma? Well, meet Robin Smith. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances? Robin Smith: I was born in Oklahoma. I was raised, primarily, on
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
