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Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 5)

Posted on Friday, Apr 17th

Sramana Mitra: The natural question that comes to my mind based on what you just said is, how do you price? Christian Blume: Our business model is, we take a share of the transaction. If somebody wants to work with us, they only pay for actual performance. There are no upfront setup fees. Nobody has to

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Long Journey To Realize a Vision: Limeade CEO Henry Albrecht (Part 5)

Posted on Friday, Apr 17th

Sramana Mitra: How did you finance the alpha and beta phases? Henry Albrecht: The first funding came from my life savings of which I put in every dime. Next came friends, family, and mostly Seattle-based angel investors. In 2008 and 2009, we started to accumulate real customers. We started as a 30-person employer. Then, 100 on

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Building an SMB SaaS Business: Stitch Labs CEO Brandon Levey (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Apr 16th

Sramana Mitra: How many of these 300 that you talked to converted into actual customers? Brandon Levey: Maybe one or none. This was more than two years before building the initial product. I came back from Las Vegas completely dumbfounded that this is the way the world was working. I just needed to talk to

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Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Apr 16th

Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. How much of this were you able to cobble together as you launched the product? Christian Blume: We launched our first beta on November 11, 2005. We worked together with a company that had a variety of different software solutions ranging from utility down to antivirus products. We were good friends with

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Long Journey To Realize a Vision: Limeade CEO Henry Albrecht (Part 4)

Posted on Thursday, Apr 16th

Sramana Mitra: Basically, these are forcing functions that are in the hands of corporations or enterprises that if you were trying to do it directly with individuals, you wouldn’t have access to. Henry Albrecht: Yes. Most importantly, work is where most people get the real meaning in their lives. Work is a core part of

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Building an SMB SaaS Business: Stitch Labs CEO Brandon Levey (Part 3)

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 15th

Sramana Mitra: You guys moved back to San Francisco at that point? Brandon Levey: I was already living in the city. Michelle flew out here. She moved to Berkeley with my sister. One of my favorite stories from that year was, Michelle had no money. She would hop over the bar terminal because she didn’t

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Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 3)

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 15th

Christian Blume: What it allowed us to do was put different checkout processes. We didn’t care whether this was checkout processes built on our engine or something that we would compare against—somebody that was running on an in-house solution or an outsourced solution. We really compare how the conversion rates really evolve with the implementation

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Long Journey To Realize a Vision: Limeade CEO Henry Albrecht (Part 3)

Posted on Wednesday, Apr 15th

Sramana Mitra: What year was that? Henry Albrecht: I quit my job at the end of 2005 and founded the company at the beginning of 2006. Sramana Mitra: This is Limeade, yes? Henry Albrecht: Yes. Sramana Mitra: You have a product management background. Walk me through the product management process that you came up with in turning

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