Bootstrap First with Services, Raise Money Later: John Stewart, CEO of MapAnything (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Was there a specific channel through which you were acquiring customers? Where were you getting the leads from? John Stewart: We built relationships at the ground level at Salesforce. As they were selling deals, especially in the small business segment, they needed integrators who were willing to take those deals and roll out

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Bootstrap First with Services, Raise Money Later: John Stewart, CEO of MapAnything (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Why build on top of Salesforce? John Stewart: We had built our MRP system on top of it when I had the manufacturing company. Salesforce’s ecosystem was really starting to explode. It was everywhere. I knew how to build a services business very well. It seemed to be that it was less specialized

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Bootstrap First with Services, Raise Money Later: John Stewart, CEO of MapAnything (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  John and his co-founder have built MapAnything from Charlotte, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia. They have now raised over $40 million in funding, proving that you can build sizable VC-funded SaaS businesses from anywhere. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where

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Bootstrapping a Global E-Commerce Company: SmartBuyGlasses CEO David Menning (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: How big is your team now? David Menning: 150. Sramana Mitra: What percentage of that is in Australia? David Menning: We actually don’t have any staff in Australia at the present time. Sramana Mitra: That’s interesting. How did that happen?

Woman Entrepreneur Building a Successful, VC Funded Business: Olivia Skuza, CEO of NuORDER (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Is the business all in LA now? Olivia Skuza: We have 80 team members today in four offices. A majority of that team is in Los Angeles. We have an office in New York. We have customer service and sales in London. We now have customer service in Australia too. Sramana Mitra: Excellent

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Bootstrapping a Global E-Commerce Company: SmartBuyGlasses CEO David Menning (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer acquisition, what has been the driving narrative? What strategies worked for you? David Menning: It really comes down to the discipline of how one runs the business and how one runs a marketing team. There’s discipline and then as a result of that, how you apply marketing efforts to

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Woman Entrepreneur Building a Successful, VC Funded Business: Olivia Skuza, CEO of NuORDER (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What’s the next major inflection point in your business? Olivia Skuza: So far, we’ve raised $25 million. We did a $3.6 million seed in 2012. Then we did Series A in 2013 for $7.5 million. New partners joined that one. Then we did an interim round in 2015 and a Series B in late

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Bootstrapping a Global E-Commerce Company: SmartBuyGlasses CEO David Menning (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back a little bit to the chronological story. In 2007, did you open up all of these English-speaking markets? David Menning: It was a step-by-step approach. In 2007, we were still trying to improve the Australian market. We were trying to improve the experience of the customer. Eyeglasses is quite a

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