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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
Building a Unicorn from Prague: Avast CEO Vince Steckler (Part 1)
Vince has built a $300 million a year security software company out of Prague, with a global customer base. Fantastic story, a must read! 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? Vince Steckler: I’m originally from
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: Have you bootstrapped your company all the way or have you raised money along the way? Taso Du Val: We raised a really small round for approximately $1.4 million with some really great individuals. It was a seed round, so it was not a priced round. We still consider ourselves a bootstrapped startup. Hence,
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: I’ll just benchmark it by saying oDesk, for instance, charges 10% of the contract value. Tell me what the additional value is that you’re adding to the process. Taso Du Val: We screen all of the individuals for you. Not only for our network but also for your specific request. There are many
Building an AI-Driven Sales Optimization Company: Vincent Yang, CEO of EverString (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting strategically in how you’ve navigated the story so far? How many customers do you have now? Vincent Yang: I think we have four or five dozen customers. The growth rate is actually pretty fast. Sramana Mitra: What’s the pricing model? What’s the business model? Vincent Yang: The core of
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What is the business model? Is it a commission-based business model? How do you charge? Taso Du Val: We take a percent of every single contract. Sramana Mitra: Are you still based in Budapest? Taso Du Val: No, I’m mostly based in New York and Moscow at the moment. That’s where I’m spending
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s take that on a more granular basis. What year are we talking when you decided, two years in, to give up? Taso Du Val: That was probably around 2012. In 2012, we said, “Maybe we should figure something else out.” That was two years after we started the company. Sramana Mitra: Who’s
Building an AI-Driven Sales Optimization Company: Vincent Yang, CEO of EverString (Part 5)
Vincent Yang: We use, what we call, topic modelling to analyze every single news. For example, is this company acquiring the other company? Is this news about conference sponsorship? How do we know how strong an implication is? We have no idea. That’s the point where we have to rely on machine learning. Machine learning
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: You’re more of a freelance engineering talent exchange? Taso Du Val: That’s accurate. We think of ourselves as Uber for engineers. It’s funny. A lot of companies have pitched this. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go from there. At 25, this is what you decided you wanted to do. How did you get the business