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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
A Serial Bootstrapper’s Journey: Beyond Security CEO Aviram Jenik (Part 3)
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
A Serial Bootstrapper’s Journey: Beyond Security CEO Aviram Jenik (Part 2)
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
Bootstrapping to $30 Million from Florida: SproutLoud CEO Jared Shusterman (Part 6)
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
A Serial Bootstrapper’s Journey: Beyond Security CEO Aviram Jenik (Part 1)
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
Bootstrapping to $30 Million from Florida: SproutLoud CEO Jared Shusterman (Part 5)
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
Bootstrapping to $30 Million from Florida: SproutLoud CEO Jared Shusterman (Part 4)
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
Bootstrapping to $30 Million from Florida: SproutLoud CEO Jared Shusterman (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: What’s the next major milestone? Put this in chronological order for me. Where are we now? Jared Shusterman: We are going into December 2005. I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a jewelry manufacturer. I talked about what I was doing in terms of building marketing programs. He said, “Interesting. I like
Building a Two-Sided Marketplace: LawnStarter CRO Ryan Farley (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: What is the next inflection point or strategic move that you made that gave you the next level of growth? Ryan Farley: We didn’t expand markets because we wanted to focus on the core customer experience. The following spring, we went to a total of eight cities. All winter was spent in recruiting
