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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Bootstrapping from London to $10 Million: Alexandre Wentzo, CEO of Casewise (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What do you want to do with the business going forward? What’s the thinking amongst the shareholders? Alexandre Wentzo: Our business has always been focused around process. We want to be more specific and trained to address more specific needs. We’re trying to focus now on business of IT. Business of IT is

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Bootstrapping Lessons: FairWarning CEO Kurt Long (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How long did Open Network go on? Kurt Long: Almost 10 years. Sramana Mitra: What happened then? Kurt Long: It was acquired by BMC. Sramana Mitra: What year was that acquisition? Kurt Long: I think it was 2004 or 2005. Sramana Mitra: You did not raise outside capital?

Bootstrapping from London to $10 Million: Alexandre Wentzo, CEO of Casewise (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How do you charge? What’s the business model? Alexandre Wentzo: It’s per user. Roughly, we sell at an average of $250,000. Sramana Mitra: So it’s large enterprise selling kind of business? Alexandre Wentzo: That’s correct. Things have changed because 10 years ago, we used to sell a few licenses. It would be 5 to 10

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