Aviram Jenik: As time passed, there were little engines on the customer side. Java became popular and started replacing what we were doing. The Internet became faster and faster. We shifted towards remote support for something like a printer driver stopping to work. Anybody who had a computer in the second half of the 90s
If you think venture capital is the only path to funding companies, you are, obviously wrong. Chris talks about a whole other world of OTC. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Chris Miglino: I was
Sramana Mitra: You knew that you needed to move out. You didn’t know where to move out to. Aviram Jenik: Exactly. It’s not that we had a brilliant idea at that time. We just thought, “Education is nice, but it’s not big enough. This new market that’s coming is huge.” Our engine was like a
Sramana Mitra: The reason why professors want to see how you are proceeding is because they can’t partially mark you. If you’re going in the right direction and somehow made a mistake and got the wrong answer, they can still give you partial points for how you were moving. That’s, I think, the thinking behind
Jared Shusterman: Quite frankly, a lot of these guys don’t trust the bigger brands that they sell. The number one game changer here in helping these guys was to be cooperative and, in effect, reap the benefits of that cooperation. It then came down to funding. We put a stake in the ground even in
Going against the grain of Venture Capital mania, in 1999, Aviram started his second bootstrapped venture. 18 years later, he is still running it. Happily! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Aviram Jenik: I was
Sramana Mitra: Very interesting. Can you sketch for us a bit of the progression of the business? How many brands did you book as customers in 2006? How many in 2007 and so on? Jared Shusterman: I don’t know the exact number. Today, we’re a little over 60 brands that are powering over 60,000 or
Sramana Mitra: When did you get your first manufacturer customer? Jared Shusterman: We got the first one who really helped us understand the beauty of the model in December. Sramana Mitra: December of 2006? Jared Shusterman: No, 2005. That’s how we discovered that this was a much more interesting model than the original model that I