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- 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
Bootstrap to $25 Million from Utah, Raise Money Later to Scale to $100 Million: John Pope, CEO of Jive (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s got into the block-by-block journey of how you got to $25 million. What were some of the first strategic moves that you made that set you up for that journey? Just walk me through the strategic process of navigating through to $25 million. John Pope: The first one was a lesson that
Bootstrap to $25 Million from Utah, Raise Money Later to Scale to $100 Million: John Pope, CEO of Jive (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Where there is something wrong is this crazy glamorization of unicorns and fundraising. That is really unhealthy and it is really destroying the entrepreneurship ecosystem. John Pope: I completely agree. In closing on that, what I didn’t want to do was have a business and then stop working hard. Maybe this will resonate
Bootstrap to $25 Million from Utah, Raise Money Later to Scale to $100 Million: John Pope, CEO of Jive (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Unless you go to an elite school or are plugged into an environment, you don’t really have access. With what we do, everybody has access anywhere in the world. Give us an anchor point from a chronology point of view. John Pope: I started those two businesses in 2004 and 2006 right after
Bootstrap to $25 Million from Utah, Raise Money Later to Scale to $100 Million: John Pope, CEO of Jive (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. John and Jive have executed steadily over the last decade and have built a kick-ass company. Read on! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? John
Bootstrap First from Belarus, Raise Money Later from Silicon Valley: PandaDoc CEO Mikita Mikado (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: That’s my question. What was the monthly recurring revenue when you raised the money? Mikita Mikado: When we raised $600,000, we were around $30,000 monthly recurring revenue. Sramana Mitra: This was for the new product? Mikita Mikado: It was for the old product, but I was selling a division of the new product.
Bootstrap First from Belarus, Raise Money Later from Silicon Valley: PandaDoc CEO Mikita Mikado (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: It sounds like the scope of what you’re talking about overlaps with all sorts of existing products like DocuSign or EcoSign. How do you position in this general ecosystem? Mikita Mikado: I find that the space is quite similar to the CRM space. There were lead management products and sales compensation products. There
Bootstrap First from Belarus, Raise Money Later from Silicon Valley: PandaDoc CEO Mikita Mikado (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What was the spec that you came up with for PandaDoc? Mikita Mikado: It’s a commerce platform. That’s what we wanted to do. We were building a B2B commerce platform – a place where companies make offers, send them to buyers, and collaborate on those, agree on terms, execute on terms, sign, and
Bootstrap First from Belarus, Raise Money Later from Silicon Valley: PandaDoc CEO Mikita Mikado (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: People were finding this product online? What was the customer acquisition strategy? Mikita Mikado: It was all online. It was SEO-driven. It was pretty much a zero sales effort. It was self-service. Sramana Mitra: What was the price point? Mikita Mikado: $10 a month. Sramana Mitra: At $10 a user, that’s a lot
