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How to Manage A Successful Pivot: Bullhorn CEO Art Papas (Part 4)

Posted on Saturday, Jun 13th

Sramana Mitra: Before we go on to 2008, give me a bit more detail about the strategy of building the business. You started with this recruiter CRM system as you described it. How much business did you do in the recruiter vertical? It sounds like that’s you’re primary vertical in the beginning, right? Art Papas: It

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Bootstrapping an Evergreen Business From Oregon: Kirstin Quinlan, CEO of Certified Languages International (Part 6)

Posted on Saturday, Jun 13th

Sramana Mitra: What is the current thinking now that you’re approaching $30 million? Many companies at your stage start thinking about selling a portion of the company… Kristin Quinlan: There has been a lot of interest in our company from outside. We’ve been through two exercises on what that would look like. That was about

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How to Manage A Successful Pivot: Bullhorn CEO Art Papas (Part 3)

Posted on Friday, Jun 12th

Sramana Mitra: Was it a large recruiting firm? Art Papas: It was mid-sized. There was about 45 people. It wasn’t a huge business. For them, all of a sudden, they’re able to service national accounts. It was a big deal during the recession. He was really looking for ways to get his business going. He was now

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Bootstrapping an Evergreen Business From Oregon: Kirstin Quinlan, CEO of Certified Languages International (Part 5)

Posted on Friday, Jun 12th

Sramana Mitra: Where are you right now revenue-wise? Kristin Quinlan: Last year, we were at $23.2 million. We’re on course to do, at least, $27 million this year. We can be as high as $30 million. Sramana Mitra: Is this a highly profitable business? Kristin Quinlan: Yes, it’s highly profitable. All of our growth has

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How to Manage A Successful Pivot: Bullhorn CEO Art Papas (Part 2)

Posted on Thursday, Jun 11th

Sramana Mitra: So you’ve been around doing this company for a while. Art Papas: Yes, we started in 1999. I stayed at Thomson for a year after college. Then, I went and joined another startup that I didn’t enjoy at all. Sramana Mitra: You really wanted to be on your own. Art Papas: I really did.

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Bootstrapping an Evergreen Business From Oregon: Kirstin Quinlan, CEO of Certified Languages International (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Jun 11th

Sramana Mitra: Besides that differentiator, how do you acquire customers? Kristin Quinlan: A lot of our growth has been through outreach from our sales team as well as from leveraging the relationships with one entity and being recommended to others. We are really good at what we do and we have got an exceedingly strong

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How to Manage A Successful Pivot: Bullhorn CEO Art Papas (Part 1)

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 10th

When Art started Bullhorn, the first idea didn’t stick, and much of the venture capital raised during the first dotcom bubble was exhausted. Read how Art pivoted out of that bind, bootstrapping his way to success. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born

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Bootstrapping an Evergreen Business From Oregon: Kirstin Quinlan, CEO of Certified Languages International (Part 3)

Posted on Wednesday, Jun 10th

Sramana Mitra: You came on board in 2000. The business was about $1.9 million. Kristin Quinlan: Yes. In 2001, it was about $1.9 million. We had a slow incline. We’ve never had a year that has gone down. Every year has been an increase from the previous year. The first early years were very slow.

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