categories
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
Bootstrapping E-Commerce to 16 Million: Valerie Holstein, CEO of Cableorganizer.com (Part 1)
Valerie Holstein is co-founder, president and CEO of CableOrganizer.com, now among the world’s leading purveyors of cable and wire management-related products. Prior to co-founding CableOrganizer.com in 2002, Holstein served as assistant drafting engineer at Buchanan Screens, a major fabricator of screen enclosures in South Florida. Prior to this, from 2000 to 2001, Holstein served as
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 7)
Sramana: How do you find the people to take these courses? Brian Knight: Last year it was word of mouth. This year a number of news organizations got word of us. Now, for every class of twelve, we have 30 applicants. We do rigorous screening to make sure they have the aptitude and desire to
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 6)
Sramana: What were you teaching in your courses? Brian Knight: We had a course that we taught virtually which carried a $795 tuition bill. It taught the new version of SQL Server. Normally, someone would have to spend several thousand dollars to attend a course. Our course still had labs and everything else you would
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 5)
Sramana: How did you build your company from an organizational standpoint during that timeframe? Brian Knight: We started with commission-only sales people. We are no longer that way, but it did serve its purpose. We aligned our five commission only sales people into the same five regions that Microsoft had for their sales force. At the
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 4)
Sramana: How were you finding your consulting opportunities? Brian Knight: In the early days I found a lot of customers via Microsoft. They had a barrier that their sales people could not get past, which was that they did not provide a way to upgrade from their old SQL Server to their new one. We
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 3)
Sramana: Once you started Pragmatic Works who were your first customers? Brian Knight: I went after a few customers around town. I provided consulting services just to build the capital in the account. I would sell a consulting job for a certain price and take 30% of that revenue and re-invest it into the company.
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 2)
Sramana: Your company is essentially offering three main products, which are software tools, training, and consulting. Is that correct? Brian Knight: We provide software tools to help people migrate from one version of a Microsoft server to another. We provide training for those who are trying to learn new platforms. We also provide consulting services
Navigating the Microsoft Ecosystem to Build a 12 Million Dollar Company: Brian Knight, CEO of Pragmatic Works (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Brian Knight, SQL Server MVP, MCSE, MCDBA, is the co-founder of SQLServerCentral.com, JumpstartTV.com, and is on the principal board of directors of the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS). Brian is a contributing columnist for many industry magazines and sites. He has written or cowritten more
