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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
A Serial Entrepreneur Who Understands ‘Work’: WorkMarket CEO Jeff Leventhal (Part 6)
Sramana: In 2005, you raised money for OnForce. What did you use that money for? Jeff Leventhal: I invested in the team. I believe value creation for a business depends on the idea, team, product, first date of sale, cash flow break even, and exit. Those are the most important moments for an entrepreneur in
Building to $10 Million in EdTech: Panopto CTO Eric Burns (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Are you assuming that there are three parallel streams being picked up? Where is the mixing happening? If you say there’s no post-production, is the technology determining how to do the mixing or which stream to use in the edited version or are you showing all three screens in different windows? Eric Burns: It’s
A Serial Entrepreneur Who Understands ‘Work’: WorkMarket CEO Jeff Leventhal (Part 5)
Sramana: How did you handle the feedback once you realized the services groups were the ones who had a need for your product? Jeff Leventhal: We did a product iteration to configure the product more in line with client needs. That company became a $100 million dollar company within a few years. Sramana: Was that
Building to $10 Million in EdTech: Panopto CTO Eric Burns (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: They basically asked you to become the CEO of this entity that was already funded? Eric Burns: I actually became the Chief Technology Officer because my competencies at that time were that of an engineer. I’m now the Chief Product Officer and I’ve done a lot of the CEO duties. We have this
A Serial Entrepreneur Who Understands ‘Work’: WorkMarket CEO Jeff Leventhal (Part 4)
Sramana: Did you build it beyond the $12 million that you hit in year two or did you sell the business? Jeff Leventhal: In 1998, we had the opportunity to sell the business to a public communications company and they are still running the business today. Sramana: How much did you sell that business for?
Building to $10 Million in EdTech: Panopto CTO Eric Burns (Part 2)
Eric Burns: I got to work on some interesting things like building a search engine from scratch, designing a large-scale storage system, and building a UI—basically, building an entire system from the ground-up. One of the other projects that I got involved in, even as early as 1998, was capturing lectures in a classroom. CMU
A Serial Entrepreneur Who Understands ‘Work’: WorkMarket CEO Jeff Leventhal (Part 3)
Sramana: Based on what you were charging customers, what was the cost of acquiring hours from providers? Did you have a fixed price or were costs variable? Jeff Leventhal: We tried to make most of our deals paid out at around $55 an hour. However, we billed our clients in 30 min increments and we paid
Building to $10 Million in EdTech: Panopto CTO Eric Burns (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. One of the issues we’ve discussed is the slow-growth nature of the EdTech industry. This interview explores the question in depth, and shows how Panopto is mitigating the issue through sector diversification. Sramana Mitra: Eric, let’s start at the beginning of your story. Tell us where