Building a Silicon Valley Style Company from Australia: ROKT CEO Bruce Buchanan (Part 3)

Sramana: Can you give me a use case for your product? Bruce Buchanan: Let’s assume you are on eBay and you have done a transaction. We will present you with what we call an engagement asset which is past the transaction. Typically, it is something that the business partner is trying to promote. It could

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Building a Healthcare IT Company to $100 Million: Dr. Rob Langdon, Co-Founder of T-System (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You built this as a startup company? Rob Langdon: Yes, we started out of our garage. Sramana Mitra: What year are we talking about? Rob Langdon: 1995.

Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 6)

Vishal Melwani: That’s what a lot of people take for granted. You go up and you pitch your business. You focus on metrics and what you want to disrupt. Really, everyone’s a human being. Every human being that I know of, especially in business, loves stories. If you can’t tell a good story, you’re not

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Building a Silicon Valley Style Company from Australia: ROKT CEO Bruce Buchanan (Part 2)

Sramana: What did you do after Jetstar? Bruce Buchanan: I stepped down from my position at Jetstar in 2012. I ran across two individuals who had founded the company that is now known as ROKT. I fell in love with the business. At the time, they did not really know what the business was, but

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Building a Healthcare IT Company to $100 Million: Dr. Rob Langdon, Co-Founder of T-System (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. A technology company that first built a $30 million business selling a paper product? You got to be kidding! No, I am not. Read T-System’s story doing just that! Sramana Mitra: Rob, let’s start with the beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where

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Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: The first $700,000 of revenue, did that come from any of these cohorts? Vishaal Melwani: Yes, all these cohorts really converted well for us. We noticed it right away. Word of mouth also became really big for us. One investment banker would get a white shirt and he would then spread that through

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Building a Silicon Valley Style Company from Australia: ROKT CEO Bruce Buchanan (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. We don’t hear of cutting edge technology ventures out of Australia succeeding in the marketplace. ROKT is a rare gem, and a fascinating story! Sramana: Bruce, where are you from? What kind of background do you come from? Bruce Buchanan: I was born in Sydney. My

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Building a New Online Fashion Brand: Combatant Gentlemen CEO Vishaal Melwani (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me more about how you bootstrapped. What were some of the components of that bootstrap phase? Vishaal Melwani: I didn’t know too much about startups. I didn’t know anything about Silicon Valley or raising money. We just knew how to build businesses that were cash flow positive. That was our number one

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