Sramana: You had some good work experiences while you were a student at the University of Washington. When you returned to California to attend UCLA, did you find similar opportunities? Dan Rodrigues: After I returned to Southern California to attend UCLA, I got involved in the computer science department there. I ended up meeting up
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Dan Rodrigues is the founder and CEO of Kareo. He founded the company in 2004 with a vision of simplifying medical offices with web-based medical billing software. Prior to launching Kareo, Dan started creating technology for the healthcare industry in 2001 as a co-founder and managing
Sramana: How much money have you raised to get where you are today? Aydin Mirzaee: We have not raised any investment money. From time to time we have applied and won some government grants, but nothing major. We are basically a bootstrapped company. The co-founders did not take money for the first two years, and
Sramana: The survey market is quite full, and SurveyMonkey is a dominant player in the market. How did you compete against them? Aydin Mirzaee: In the beginning we were focusing on the Canadian market. We met governmental regulations that gave us a niche market. Once we had that funding, we started to focus on expanding
Sramana: Essentially you had to reposition yourselves in the marketplace. Where did you find your sweet spot? Aydin Mirzaee: We decided to focus entirely on the super niche market and dominate that particular market before moving on. That would let us be a big fish in a small pond, and we would worry about the
Sramana: What specifically did he want built for $10,000? Aydin Mirzaee: He wanted a system built for students to upload their business plans and presentations to a website for a business plan competition. The judges would be able to see the business plans and provide feedback and evaluation through the website. The website owner would
Sramana: What was the initial iteration of FluidWare? Aydin Mirzaee: The first iteration was interesting because it was based on my former company. I had been trying to raise venture capital, and everyone told me that I had to get money from the Valley. It is easy to say, but I did not understand it.
Sramana: Did you start this company right after college? Aydin Mirzaee: No, I actually started working at Nortel. They were a pretty big deal when I graduated in 2006. My first three months at Nortel were amazing. I was learning every day, exploring new things and ideas. After three months I learned everything I needed