categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
entrepreneur journeys
A Serial Entrepreneur’s Process: Todd Dunlop, CEO of RingPartner (Part 1)
Most serial entrepreneurs have figured out certain unique ways in which they operate. In this story, we get to learn about Todd’s process. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background? Todd Dunlop: I was born in
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: I’ll just benchmark it by saying oDesk, for instance, charges 10% of the contract value. Tell me what the additional value is that you’re adding to the process. Taso Du Val: We screen all of the individuals for you. Not only for our network but also for your specific request. There are many
Building an AI-Driven Sales Optimization Company: Vincent Yang, CEO of EverString (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting strategically in how you’ve navigated the story so far? How many customers do you have now? Vincent Yang: I think we have four or five dozen customers. The growth rate is actually pretty fast. Sramana Mitra: What’s the pricing model? What’s the business model? Vincent Yang: The core of
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: What is the business model? Is it a commission-based business model? How do you charge? Taso Du Val: We take a percent of every single contract. Sramana Mitra: Are you still based in Budapest? Taso Du Val: No, I’m mostly based in New York and Moscow at the moment. That’s where I’m spending
Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to Scale: Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: Let’s take that on a more granular basis. What year are we talking when you decided, two years in, to give up? Taso Du Val: That was probably around 2012. In 2012, we said, “Maybe we should figure something else out.” That was two years after we started the company. Sramana Mitra: Who’s
Building an AI-Driven Sales Optimization Company: Vincent Yang, CEO of EverString (Part 5)
Vincent Yang: We use, what we call, topic modelling to analyze every single news. For example, is this company acquiring the other company? Is this news about conference sponsorship? How do we know how strong an implication is? We have no idea. That’s the point where we have to rely on machine learning. Machine learning
Building an AI-Driven Sales Optimization Company: Vincent Yang, CEO of EverString (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: I’m going to start asking you very deep questions because I did a startup in the sales lead generation area back in 1997. It used NLP and the whole AI stream. It was a bit early. It was well before the Internet had completely established itself. I know a lot about this area
Bootstrapping to $300 Million: Faisal Husain, CEO of Synechron (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Tell me more about your thinking around that. It sounds like there’s a philosophy around being self-financed. You must be getting lots of calls from private equity all the time. Faisal Husain: Yes, we’ve been getting calls for several years. I have met all of them and am on fairly good terms with them. In
