Bootstrapping An Innovative Telecom Services Startup: Callture Co-founders Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga (Part 6)

Sramana: You mentioned that you just received a patent for voice memos. How would that feature work as a selling point for businesses? Mamoon Rashid: Let’s say that I call you on your toll-free number and you are a real estate agent or some type of contractor, job that requires you to be on the

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Bootstrapping An Innovative Telecom Services Startup: Callture Co-founders Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga (Part 5)

Sramana: What are some of your other online marketing strategies? Siva Sanmuga: We still do a lot of our marketing through Google. Keyword marketing is something that is very proven for our business. We are now doing content marketing as well, which involves banner ads. We have done some marketing on social media but we

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Bootstrapping An Innovative Telecom Services Startup: Callture Co-founders Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga (Part 4)

Sramana: How do you feel about Skype being acquired by Microsoft? Siva Sanmuga: They will probably use Skype to go after very large enterprises since that seems to be their primary focus.

Bootstrapping An Innovative Telecom Services Startup: Callture Co-founders Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga (Part 2)

Sramana: You said the three of you started as engineering students in Canada. Are you still based on Canada today? Mamoon Rashid: We have a very strong presence in Canada and still live there, but we have our primary business in the U.S. now. However, it is a Canadian company.

Bootstrapping An Innovative Telecom Services Startup: Callture Co-founders Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga (Part 1)

Mamoon Rashid and Siva Sanmuga are serial entrepreneurs who co-founded Telcan in 1997 followed by Callture in 2004. Both graduated from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, after completing their engineering studies. Callture is a Canadian technology company based in Ontario and is a subsidiary of Telcan. Sramana: Mamoon, can you give us some context to

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How Not To Finance Your Company: TalkPoint CEO Nick Balletta (Part 7)

Sramana: How did the business ramped up from 2005 through 2010? Nick Balletta: We have quadrupled revenues during that amount of time. Our revenues are north of $20 million.

How Not To Finance Your Company: TalkPoint CEO Nick Balletta (Part 6)

Sramana: After you reacquired the company in 2005, what were the strategic steps you took to build the business?   Nick Balletta: In 2005 we had to make a couple of key decisions. We had a couple of different platforms because of the various machinations of the company. We decided to make a concerted effort to

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How Not To Finance Your Company: TalkPoint CEO Nick Balletta (Part 5)

Sramana: In 2003 you reacquired the company. Had everything dwindled, or did it still have customers?  Nick Balletta: Yes, it still had customers. Morgan Stanley and Goldman are both still customers. When we dumped the company into a public shell, we ran it public for a year and a half. It was an undercapitalized technology

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