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HOT TOPICS
- 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 a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: We’re now at the end of 2000. You’ve got this model that is validating. You’re starting to make a little bit of money with which you can pay yourself. What are the next key strategic moves and what were the next key inflection points in the business? Sal Akbani: The next strategic move
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: How did you mitigate the constrained budget? Mark Dorsey: I’m really proud of this. It’s something that we take a lot of pride in. We identified that we had a very rabid seller fanbase who were willing to do whatever it took to make our company the most successful marketplace online. Realizing that,
Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Your site operates as a two-sided marketplace except you store the inventory. Sal Akbani: Yes, and we have currently 14 plus 1. Sramana Mitra: What does that mean? Sal Akbani: We have 14 active ones [warehouses] and we have one more coming up in Denver on June. We’re currently also working in Scottsdale
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What year did Bill start coding the product? Mark Dorsey: That was in 2007. He started building Bonanza from the ground up. At that time, there were a lot of eBay alternatives. The opportunities were obvious. There were a lot of programs that allowed you to create an e-commerce marketplace by just filling
Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What did you do to wipe the initial money out? How did you use that money? Sal Akbani: You have real estate expenses because you need a place to store cars. You had to have the money to market those cars. Sramana Mitra: Were you buying cars? Were you actually holding on to
Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Bonanza has scaled to over $75 million in revenue with just $1 million in funding. It was bootstrapped for several years before a penny of external financing was raised. Amazingly crisp execution. A must-read story of how a two-sided marketplace was masterfully seeded and scaled. Sramana
Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Sal has bootstrapped Gateway Classic Cars to over $10 million in revenue. Another great story of how a two-sided marketplace was masterfully seeded and scaled in a niche market. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were
Master Bootstrapper with a Billion Plus in Exits: Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi and Flock (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: You have, yourself, generated a huge amount of capital at this point through a couple of exits. You had an all-cash exit of $160 million plus a $900 million exit. That’s a lot of cash. You don’t really need to go anywhere for cash. You have plenty of cash. Culturally and strategically, in