Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 6)

Sramana: So your ultimate strategy is to go to market through third party consultants? Krishna Kumar: We want to empower consulting companies to run with projects based in our technology. They are not going to buy into our strategy if two things don’t happen. First, we need to have similar customers in the market that

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Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What is your perspective on this theme that often gets discussed that there’s a bias against women in Silicon Valley. Do you buy it? Ilana Stern: It’s a hard question to answer. I think I’ve been really fortunate in fund raising, team building, and getting support from my environment. I don’t feel disadvantaged.

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 5)

Sramana: Do you have any proof points of your technology working and providing actionable recommendations? Krishna Kumar: We are very new and we have just started the pilot project for that use case. It is not a tried and tested method from the business method standpoint. We will be working with more established ERP vendors

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Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How do you assess the TAM? How big is the bridesmaid dress category? Ilana Stern: Bridesmaid dresses itself is about a $2 billion category housed within the $14 billion wedding fashion industry. Overall, the wedding industry is $100 billion. Sramana Mitra: Your growth strategy is wedding industry merchandise or collaborative e-commerce?

Thought Leaders in Big Data: Dmitri Williams, Professor USC and CEO of Ninja Metrics (Part 4)

Dmitri Williams: I have no idea if I impacted sales because I have 10,000 followers. I don’t know if I have generated $1 or $3 million. I’ve got no clue. It’s all an assumption. You’re really looking at a proxy for action. Any marketer with their head on straight would rather have proof. What we

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 4)

Sramana: So how have you been able to build a product by combining the Internet of Things, People and Processes? Krishna Kumar: We have an intelligence layer that sits on top of all of these three components and allows you to build applications on top of that. For example, we are working with an organic

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Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What has been your inventory strategy starting from the beginning to where you’re now doing private label. Can you step us through how the inventory strategy has evolved over time? Ilana Stern: The brands that we launched with are special occasion dress brands that are all made to order. Essentially, it’s a non-inventory

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 3)

Sramana: What kind of traction were you able to get with your Bootstrapping with Services strategy? Krishna Kumar: We were able to get some good Fortune 500 customers using that bootstrapping methodology. We used that as the means to get our first round of funding, which came through Open Ventures. Sramana: Where is the company

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