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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
Bootstrapping to $200 Million: Jorn Lyseggen, CEO of Meltwater (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer traction, what did this altered process yield for you? Let’s say the first year of this altered process, how much did you sell? Jorn Lyseggen: Our sales was probably half a million dollars. Sramana Mitra: What was the pricing model? How were you charging? Jorn Lyseggen: It was a
Bootstrapping to $200 Million: Jorn Lyseggen, CEO of Meltwater (Part 4)
Jorn Lyseggen: We started approaching this in a completely different way. We tried hiring our own sales people. We wanted to engage the clients in a much more strategic way. Instead of talking about our product, we wanted to engage the clients on their domain and try to understand their pain. Once we understood their
Bootstrapping to $200 Million: Jorn Lyseggen, CEO of Meltwater (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: What happens next? You’ve been running this public company? Jorn Lyseggen: Yes. I was a public CEO and experienced all the exciting stuff that it entails. After a while, I got eager to start a new company. I ended up starting Meltwater, which is the company I run today. Sramana Mitra: Meltwater was
Bootstrapping to $200 Million: Jorn Lyseggen, CEO of Meltwater (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What kind of clients were you working with? Were they Norwegian clients? What was the client pool at that point? Jorn Lyseggen: The client pool when I started out was Norwegian companies. We worked with the major banks. We worked with the major publishing houses and helped newspapers to create an online version
Bootstrapping to $200 Million: Jorn Lyseggen, CEO of Meltwater (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Jorn started Meltwater in Norway and has scaled the company organically to $200 million. Fascinating journey! 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
Bootstrapping Lessons: FairWarning CEO Kurt Long (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: You did not go to the channel and try to convince them to sell your product. You generated market demand first. This is very much the methodology that we teach as well. That’s a good strategic point to highlight. Are there other pieces that you want to discuss? Kurt Long: There are many
Bootstrapping Lessons: FairWarning CEO Kurt Long (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: Once you identified what problem you were going to work on, did you then raise money? Kurt Long: No. At this point, I had my own money. I paid people to build exactly what I wanted. I started selling it personally. I would not take any services revenue. I was determined to be
Bootstrapping Lessons: FairWarning CEO Kurt Long (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: What area did you decide to go into and how did you determine what problem you were going to solve next? Talk to me about the thought process. Kurt Long: When I started Open Network, I was scrambling. You don’t have anything. You’re trying to find a customer problem and you’re interacting with customers. By