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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
Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Rick Wilson, President of Miva Merchant (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: In 2007, what was the landscape in the e-commerce shopping cart or the e-commerce platform world? What was going on around you? What was the competitive landscape? Whom did you compete with directly and indirectly? Rick Wilson: Yahoo stores was still a popular platform. I wouldn’t say that it had momentum, but it
Building a Subscription E-Commerce Business from Switzerland: Samy Liechti, CEO of Blacksocks (Part 1)
Samy Liechti has built up a very nice subscription e-commerce business from Switzerland selling socks, underwear, and shorts. The company is 100% bootstrapped. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Samy Liechti: I’m Swiss and grew
Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Rick Wilson, President of Miva Merchant (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: You were working as Head of North America Sales and the game plan was to orient the product to be sold by the hosting providers. Rick Wilson: That is correct. We were very successful with that. Between 1998 and 2004, which was when we stopped that process, we signed up 3,500 hosting providers.
Bootstrapping a Credit Card Processing Business: Payscape CEO Adam Bloomston (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in that 2010 to 2014 growth story? Adam Bloomston: For us, our focus has always been on revenue. We have always been focused on selling something, selling it well, and supporting it well. I think the most interesting thing we have done is, we created Payscape University. It is
Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jacob Cooke, CEO of Web Presence in China (Part 6)
Jacob Cooke: One more thing I should point out is it’s not that you can’t contact those users. Even with those unique identifiers on Tmall, it’s actually the same as their AliWangwang account, which is similar to Skype. You still can contact that user. You just have to work within that ecosystem. You have enough
Bootstrapping a Credit Card Processing Business: Payscape CEO Adam Bloomston (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Have you done other verticalized product acquisitions or solutions? Adam Bloomston: We have. We purchased an electronic invoicing company called Billion, probably in 2011. It is an electronic invoicing program on a web-based platform. If you are in any kind of service business or any kind of business, you send them an invoice
Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jacob Cooke, CEO of Web Presence in China (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: What happens if you’re a new merchant? Jacob Cooke: If you’re a new merchant, you’re in the sandbox for 30 days. That can be tough. You probably want to focus on pricing for the first 30 days. You also might want to up the guarantee level. Basically, every sector is different. One of
Bootstrapping a Credit Card Processing Business: Payscape CEO Adam Bloomston (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get zero to one million in revenue and how many people were involved in the company at that point? Adam Bloomston: It took us about two to three years. Maybe four. Sramana Mitra: Three years? Just around the 2007-2008 timeframe, you hit that milestone? Adam Bloomston: