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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 to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: The two of you got this product going. How did you find your customers? Jim Alvarez: I literally went door to door. I said, “I have this idea to help you manage the whole fundraising process during the event. Will you take a shot?” This was a pretty big pain point that charities
Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s get back to the story. How much did your raise from Sequoia and when was that? Zvi Guterman: In early 2008, we raised $5 million. This was our A round. Later on, we did another $10 million. Later we added another $10 million. Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer acquisition and customer traction,
Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: You basically built this on your father’s farm? Jim Alvarez: Yes. Sramana Mitra: You turned it into a theme park kind of thing? Jim Alvarez: Yes. This is our 8th year and we are still growing strong. It’s a really big operation. I’ve got eight people in the parking lot, three police officers,
Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s also understand how you apply the learnings you had in your previous company when you started this one. What did you do differently? How did you navigate funding? Zvi Guterman: It was clear to me that the first market was going to be the US market. As soon as possible, I moved
Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: It was not e-commerce. You were getting golf clubs made in China and wholesaling them to retailers. Jim Alvarez: Yes, I did have an e-commerce site as well but majority of our business was from wholesaling it to big golf retailers. Sramana Mitra: How long did that go on? Jim Alvarez: I did
Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: That’s part of an entrepreneur’s life – lots of no’s. Zvi Guterman: Yes. That was my first startup out of Israel. We did a lot of mistakes. One of them was staying in Israel. At least, that was my belief. We were far away from the market. That was one challenge. The second
Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 1)
Jim has bootstrapped a $10M company by providing a software solution to the charity auction management problem. Interesting journey. 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? Jim Alvarez: I was born and raised in the south
Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 1)
Zvi has built a $25M a year in profitable revenue with $20M in venture capital from Sequoia and other investors. 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? Zvi Guterman: I was born in a small village
