More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 2)

SM: When did you launch VirtualTourist.com? JJ: In 1999 I started talking to Tilman [Reissfelder], who is now my partner. He had the website, which at the time had a clickable map, some open source content, and some paid links. Reflecting back on my travel experiences, I suggested we build something that gave people a

Read Full Article »

More Bootstrapping: VirtualTourist.com Co-Founder J.R. Johnson (Part 1)

VirtualTourist.com is a Web 3.0 travel community where users and locals share real travel advice and experiences. It is a source of unbiased, user-generated travel content and a premier resource for travelers seeking an insider’s perspective on their upcoming travels. Real travel tips, reviews, and photos are provided by a community of over 1 million

Read Full Article »

Building Indian Mobile Banking: mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy (Part 7)

SM: How do you view the competitive landscape both internationally and in India? SS: Quite honestly, I have not worried about the competitive landscape. Our opportunity is so large that I have to focus on the massive growth we have. The Indian market is so big that we have not looked at expanding beyond India.

Building Indian Mobile Banking: mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy (Part 6)

SM: Where are you seeing traction in terms of income level? SS: It is unbelievable how wide our customer base is. We were sitting in a meeting with one customer who said it was a high-end niche product, and that they would be happy to roll it out but expected it would remain a niche

Read Full Article »

Building Indian Mobile Banking: mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy (Part 5)

SM: Are other telecom operators adopting this model? What is the business model of your relationship with the telecoms? SS: mChek’s vision is to be a global consumer payments brand. The business model is inherently transaction-based, where we receive a percentage of the transaction. Over a period of time other telecom operators will be launching the product,

Read Full Article »

Building Indian Mobile Banking: mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy (Part 4)

SM: When you joined, was it a commercially viable solution? SS: There was a big gap between the concept and a commercially ready solution. We had investments and a team and had to take the idea and build it into a large-scale enterprise system. That took 18 months.

Building Indian Mobile Banking: mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy (Part 3)

SM: When did you finally move back to India, and when did you decide to do mChek full time? SS: We moved back in 2003. Initially, I came to the conclusion that the business was not viable at that point, largely due to Indian regulatory issues. I ended up starting up the Indian operations for Ketera

Read Full Article »

Building Indian Mobile Banking: mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy (Part 2)

SM: What types of positions did you hold at Integrated Systems? SS: I was with them for seven years and worked in a variety of roles. I started off in customer support, then moved on to training, international sales, domestic sales, product development, and marketing.