Bootstrapping a Fun Social Business: Paint Nite CEO Dan Hermann (Part 2)

Dan Hermann: We attended a friend’s birthday party, which was at this painting studio where they were serving beer and wine. Both he and I recognized very quickly that there was a lot of power to the concept, which had a lot of visual implications. We could tell that it was just very social media

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Disrupting Cloud-Based Recruiting: SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck (Part 2)

Sramana: Why did you move to the Czech Republic? Jerome Ternynck: I went there for the market opportunities. France didn’t, and still doesn’t, offer good opportunities for entrepreneurs. There is not much growth there. I went to a market and positioned myself in a market where I can show growth and opportunity.

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Peter Hirst, Executive Director of Executive Education, MIT Sloan School of Management (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. Online learning is something that you can do at your own time in a very flexible way. That flexibility goes away with that. You’re saying that there’s more benefit in terms of engagement and learning, but there is that other benefit of flexibility that gets taken away from that setup. Peter Hirst:

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Bootstrapping a Fun Social Business: Paint Nite CEO Dan Hermann (Part 1)

Social media is great, but human beings also love to socialize in person. Paint Nite is thriving by tapping into the desire human beings have to ‘hang out’ and do creative things. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with telling our audience a little bit about your personal background. Where were you born and raised? What kind

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Disrupting Cloud-Based Recruiting: SmartRecruiters CEO Jerome Ternynck (Part 1)

SmartRecruiters is going after Taleo and SuccessFactors and intends to disrupt the cloud-based recruiting platform industry. Gutsy and well-conceived, Jerome is executing very well on his vision! Sramana: Jerome, let’s start by reviewing your background. Where are you from? What are the roots to your entrepreneurial journey? Jerome Ternynck: I was born in France. I

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Peter Hirst, Executive Director of Executive Education, MIT Sloan School of Management (Part 2)

Peter Hirst: From an education standpoint, the input doesn’t look that dissimilar from a cost base. The other approach is the MOOCs. Often, they are free and are low-cost courses. We’re beginning to see some executive education versions of those. As I go around and talk to my peers in other schools and in schools

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Katya Andresen, CEO of Cricket Media (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: If you try to build a business that is selling to schools, that’s an incredibly slow cycle. I have companies in our portfolio and I know a lot of educational entrepreneurs who have become frustrated trying to sell technology or content to schools. It’s a long sell cycle. The textbook vendors are quite

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Building a Fat Startup with a Massive Patent Portfolio: Cleversafe Founder Chris Gladwin (Part 7)

Sramana: What are some of the metrics of the business today? Chris Gladwin: We are doing many tens of millions of revenue. We have 130 employees and have raised over $100 million in total. We have built a very large patent portfolio. We have 186 patents. We had six issued last Tuesday. We typically get

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