Sramana Mitra: That’s only true if you’re looking at those local types of businesses. We work globally and we work on only digital entrepreneurships – IT, IT-enabled services types of businesses. That’s non-local and a lot of it is very scalable. We’re seeing a lot of interest from entrepreneurs all around the world – not
Sramana Mitra: You wanted to make the switch to a product company with a hypothesis that this is what you think is needed in the market. You wanted to switch off your consulting business and turn it into a product company in 2011? Ali Behnam: A big part of the product that we had built
Sramana Mitra: In what kinds of disciplines are you seeing the maximum online adoption? Is it engineering, nursing, or business? Todd Hitchcock: Traditionally, there has been a lot of growth in business and engineering. We see a tremendous amount of growth in healthcare professions. We see growth in degree programs that are associated directly with
Sramana: How did the business ramp from 2004 onwards? Tom Kemp: The ramp has been really good. We formed the company in 2004 and we did not ship product until 2005. We did over $1 million in our first calendar year. The next year we grew to $3 million. In 2007, we grew it to
Ali Behnam: Early on as we got engaged in our analytics practice, we realized that there is a big need for help with tagging. A lot of customers were unsatisfied with their analytics implementation. The number one cause of that dissatisfaction was the fact that their implementation was not done in a proper way and
Sramana: What is your algorithm for determining how big your TAM is? When you explore a new product idea, how large does the TAM have to be for that product to make it viable? Tom Kemp: People get lulled into repeating what analysts or others say about the market. If an analyst says there is
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Three years of web analytics consulting led Ali and his co-founder to identify a core customer need around which he is now building a high-growth, venture-funded company. Sramana Mitra: Ali, let’s start with your own personal journey. Where were you born and raised? What kind of
Sramana Mitra: Any particular discipline or is it across the board? Todd Hitchcock: It’s funny you should ask that one. How we determine whether or not to partner with an institution is not like a traditional sale where we go and sell our products to someone. We’re actually very strategic in how we engage with