Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: This is not exactly a wedding planning site? It’s a bridesmaid shopping site. Ilana Stern: No, it’s not. It’s a rich collaborative shopping experience. Sramana Mitra: Yes, but your focus is still on bridesmaid dresses or has it broadened? Ilana Stern: Our focus is still on bridesmaid dresses and we’ll be expanding beyond

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 2)

Sramana: How did you get the company off the ground? Did you raise VC money? Did you use your own money? Did you bootstrap? Krishna Kumar: Initially, we had to bootstrap. The first few years were funded through my checking account. Sramana: How long did it take you to get your first customer? Krishna Kumar:

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Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How did you select whom to put in the private beta? How were you finding these beta customers? Ilana Stern: It started with my network. The fact that I am in the target audience is really helpful because I am the customer and the people around me are too. The first few customers

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Bootstrapping Using Services: Krishna Kumar, CEO of AppOrchid (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  See how a serial entrepreneur is using the ‘Bootstrapping Using Services’ methodology repeatedly to get companies off the ground. Sramana: Krishna, let’s start with the beginning of your personal story. Where are you from, what is your background? What leads up to your entrepreneurial story? Krishna

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Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 2)

Ilana Stern: What was really interesting was that I saw this disconnect between the supply side and the demand side. If you took a millennial bride and looked at how she lived her life in general, it’s very different from how her mother lived her life in terms of how she consumes media, how she

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Serial Entrepreneur David Steinberg’s Four-Startup Journey (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Your customer base is enterprise customers? David Steinberg: Yes, our customers are enterprise. Sramana Mitra: You were just talking about specifically how you’ve differentiated and brought the pieces together using, to some extent, a roll-up strategy. Is that part of the strategy now? David Steinberg: No, we’re not a roll-up strategy.

Building a VC-Funded Fashion E-Commerce Company: Weddington Way CEO Ilana Stern (Part 1)

There aren’t that many venture-funded fashion e-commerce companies out there. The main reason is that the venture capital business is dominated by men, and typically, women happen to be more in tune with fashion. Ilana Stern is building a very interesting fashion company focused on bridesmaid dresses as the starting point. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with

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Serial Entrepreneur David Steinberg’s Four-Startup Journey (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: These companies that you brought together to get the base level offering going, how did you identify them? David Steinberg: That’s a great question. I took a core team from my last company who focused on M&A and corporate strategy. That team started looking around and calling everybody on earth. For example, we started

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