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- The Startup Velocity Question
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- Man and Superman
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- The Future: End of Capitalism
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Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: After you sold the healthcare business? Tony DiCostanzo: Yes. I didn’t think of the book company as having a big potential because at that time, it was limited to probably about 20 different books that we sold consistently. Some of those books were from different publishers, but I didn’t really represent all the other books
Disrupting the Floral E-Commerce Industry: Farbod Shoraka, CEO of BloomNation (Part 1)
You must have heard of 1-800-Flowers. Did you know that the company takes 50% of the order value, while the local florists fulfill the orders? That’s a hefty customer acquisition cost. Read how Farbod Shoraka and his co-founders are disrupting the industry. Sramana: Farbod, let’s start by learning a bit about you. Where are you
Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 2)
Tony DiCostanzo: We engaged a professor out of Stanford who had developed some studies documenting a return on investment for companies that implemented this wellness program. We were able to take that and develop a new company without all of the baggage that the other firm had. That was the first personal foray into entrepreneurship
Disrupting Cloud-Based Recruiting: SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck (Part 7)
Sramana: It sounds like your recruiting marketplace is a key differentiator for you. Jerome Ternynck: The store is becoming a very interesting community. We have reviews, sharing of reviews, and cross-customer analytics. For example, if you want to find a designer in San Francisco, we can easily tell you where the best places to advertise
Bootstrapping a Bulk Book E-Commerce Business: BookPal CEO Tony DiCostanzo (Part 1)
Tony has identified a gap in the book business and built a thriving company. Let’s learn the how, what, and why of it. Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about yourself. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? Tony DiCostanzo: I was born in Anchorage, Alaska. Shortly after turning two, I moved
Disrupting Cloud-Based Recruiting: SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck (Part 6)
Sramana: How do you compare to SuccessFactors? Jerome Ternynck: They are a lower version of Taleo that ventured into recruiting in 2009. They have the same principles. This is a market that I know very well because I have been in it so long. Sramana: What is the sales cycle like? It sounds like you
Thought Leaders in Online Education: Peter Hirst, Executive Director of Executive Education, MIT Sloan School of Management (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: They’re used to texting non-stop. One form of social interaction could be just having an instant messenger and they’re doing their group study that way. There’s one other thought that comes to my mind in relation to the media industries parallel that we touched upon earlier. There is this whole thing happening in
Bootstrapping a Fun Social Business: Paint Nite CEO Dan Hermann (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: All the online ticket processing happens through your central website? Dan Hermann: Yes. Sramana Mitra: Is this self-financed? Dan Hermann: That’s one of the really great things about this business. We’re completely self-financed. Our financing engine is based on the fact that people purchase a ticket for a future event, but they don’t