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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
Ultra-light Startup with $6 Million Revenue: Car Part Kings CEO Michael Dash (Part 6)
Sramana: Your policy of being selective with distributors makes perfect sense. How many relationships do you have with distributors in order to allow you to serve the entire car parts market? Michael Dash: I have one distributor who covers 99% of my aftermarket parts requests. For my body parts, I have one distributor that I
Bootstrapping a Big Data Company Using Services: DataSong CEO John Wallace (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: You were kind of an applications engineer? John Wallace: It was a great opportunity. Sramana Mitra: That brings us to 2003? John Wallace: Yes. In 2003, I started a firm doing analytic consulting. I thought that I would be more impartial to what software we use to solve a problem and be more focused on
Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ in Revenue Without Dropping Out: Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: From the end user’s perspective, is the end user using your platform largely in a web self-service mode? What percentage of that user uses self-service versus a tutor assisted usage? Andrew Grauer: It’s probably going to be something like 70% to 80% self-service. Sramana Mitra: I’m trying to gauge how big the tutoring
Ultra-light Startup with $6 Million Revenue: Car Part Kings CEO Michael Dash (Part 5)
Sramana: Are your distributors well equipped to handle the fulfillment directly to consumers? Michael Dash: Yes, they have large warehouses that stock these auto part inventories. Those warehouses are set up as shipment and fulfillment warehouses. When somebody orders a part from me, I electronically transmit that to them. They pick that part and put
Bootstrapping a Big Data Company Using Services: DataSong CEO John Wallace (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. We maintain that one of the best ways to identify complex problems worth solving inside enterprises is by offering services to them, thereby gaining exposure to the domain. Datasong is yet another case in point. Related reading: Bootstrapping Using Services. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the
Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ in Revenue Without Dropping Out: Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: You were doing college level courses? Andrew Grauer: Yes, we focused on US colleges. Then, we expanded internationally as well and now we’re just starting to go into high school. Sramana Mitra: Within those colleges, was there any bias in terms of courses?
Ultra-light Startup with $6 Million Revenue: Car Part Kings CEO Michael Dash (Part 4)
Sramana: Let’s double down on the evolution of your business. Can you talk more about the progression of the business chronologically? When did you actually start the business? Michael Dash: We started it in September of 2011. We had sold our equity in our previous company in July of 2011. We started brainstorming our next
Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ in Revenue Without Dropping Out: Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: That’s actually great. We love these stories of student entrepreneurs who didn’t drop out. Going back to the subscription model, how did the revenue ramp? Andrew Grauer: It ramped really well in terms of growth rate but we were starting on a really small figure. I don’t remember the specifics. I do know