Building India’s First Billion Dollar Tech Company: InMobi Co-Founder Amit Gupta (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  [Also check out my Entrepreneur Journeys book, Seed India – How To Navigate The Seed Capital Gap in India] InMobi is probably going to be the first billion dollar global technology company built out of India. Read their thrilling entrepreneurial journey. Sramana: Amit, let’s go back to the very beginning

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From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 7)

Sramana: You also get a lot of auction traffic from India. What do Indian’s buy? Alexander Zacke: They buy pretty much everything except European furniture. They don’t really like it. They buy a lot of Indian art, miniatures, and contemporary Indian art. I see the same trend happen in Morocco, Argentina, Mexico, and Turkey, where

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From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 6)

Sramana: There is a very compelling element to your story. You are going to have access to the larger ticket items that are the economic drivers of a traditional auction house. However, traditional auction houses do not have the ability to scale. Auctionata has the ability to scale much faster. Alexander Zacke: That is exactly

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From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 5)

Sramana: What is your commission structure? Alexander Zacke: Our standard fees are 20% from the seller and 20% from the buyer. Our fees are negotiable, depending on the value of the consignment. The overall commission we receive will likely be less than 30%. Sramana: You said that you raised some money to build this company.

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From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 4)

Sramana: How do you manage the courier service? Is it your own service or do you use a commercial service? Where are you having the paintings shipped to? Alexander Zacke: We pick up the merchandise as soon as we obtain an auction contract. We then catalogue the item and run it through our in-house services.

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From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 3)

Sramana: Did you expand Auctionata to include other auction house functions once you had verified market interest through valuation services? Alexander Zacke: From there, everything progressed very quickly. We did 400,000 valuations in our first year. Sramana: How did people find out about the site? How did they know you existed and that you offered

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From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 2)

Sramana: What did you learn from watching eBay’s struggle with art auctions? Alexander Zacke: In the mid-2000’s, it became clear that the peer-to-peer marketplace model, although extremely powerful and scalable, did not work beyond a certain price point. The fine art world will begin at $1,000 which was 20 times the price point of eBay.

Building Fat Startups: Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What happened next in your history? Andres Rodriguez: After we sold Archivas, we had all the top venture capitalist wanting to fund the next project. Sramana Mitra: I’m sure. What’s good with being an entrepreneur is, capital follows you. Andres Rodriguez: Success breeds capital. Sramana Mitra: However, let’s talk about the investment pieces

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