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HOT TOPICS
- 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 Bootstrapper: Oversee and Manage Founder Fred Hsu (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: In 2009, you were out. What did you do next? Fred Hsu: I moved out of LA. I married and had two kids. I raised them for a couple of years and got the entrepreneur itch again. Then in about 2010, I met up with an old college friend called Kai. He was
Successful Pivot to $5M in Revenue from Chicago: Cohesive Networks CEO Patrick Kerpan (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: What year did you quit Borland? Patrick Kerpan: It was sometime in early 2006. I was going to do an excellent year off. After about two weeks of me reorganizing household processes, my wife said, “You’ve got to get an office outside of the house because you’re driving us all crazy.” The co-founder of
Serial Bootstrapper: Oversee and Manage Founder Fred Hsu (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: How many people did you need to make this equation work? Fred Hsu: We had a peak of about 225 employees across three or four locations. Sramana Mitra: What function required a lot of people? At some level, it sounds like if you’re doing all this by technology, it’s not probably that people-intensive
Successful Pivot to $5M in Revenue from Chicago: Cohesive Networks CEO Patrick Kerpan (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: It sounds like that company was bootstrapped because it’s unfinanceable given the landscape of the time? Patrick Kerpan: What we find hard for bootstrapped companies is, ultimately if you have a mixed model and you have family, friends, and angel investors, those are discreet investors. They’re not portfolio investors. When you run into a
Serial Bootstrapper: Oversee and Manage Founder Fred Hsu (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Did you bootstrap it all the way? Fred Hsu: If I were to relay anything and I could teach people, we raised money when we least needed it. We raised $150 million for Series A. Sramana Mitra: $150 million?! Fred Hsu: Yes. Sramana Mitra: What were your metrics in the business that you
Successful Pivot to $5M in Revenue from Chicago: Cohesive Networks CEO Patrick Kerpan (Part 1)
Patrick has built an interesting company from Chicago that had to go through a significant pivot. 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 circumstances? Patrick Kerpan: I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My father was a policeman.
Building a Cyber Security Company from Israel: Aki Eldar, CEO of Secure Islands (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: In 2014, all the money that you raised was from Credit Suisse Next? Aki Eldar: Only from Credit Suisse Next, which was also a vote of trust coming from a customer. Sramana Mitra: What’s the next milestone? Aki Eldar: The next milestone is we’re expanding worldwide. We have an office in the US.
Serial Bootstrapper: Oversee and Manage Founder Fred Hsu (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Is this the company that you’re running now? Fred Hsu: No, that company was actually called Oversee. It had started around 2000. It was completely bootstrapped. Our first investor was my mom. She helped us buy our first server. That company grew from zero to eventually $230 million in annual revenues from 2000 to