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
Serial Entrepreneurship in Pittsburgh: Ron Bianchini’s Amazing Journey (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: We can go on and on about Computer Science, but what did you do after Carnegie Mellon? Ron Bianchini: I graduated in 1989. They asked me to stay on as a professor. So, I stayed on and taught. I very much enjoyed Computer Engineering. When my dad was at NYU and even when
Successful Pivots on Product, Market, Business Model: Gigya Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Eyal Magen (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: What happens next? Eyal Magen: We went through the whole Internet boom. The bubble exploded and we had to survive. Eventually, we sold the company. When the company was sold, there was a comeback in the Internet and for raising money. Out of Hotbar, for example, came out seven or eight startups. These
Serial Entrepreneurship in Pittsburgh: Ron Bianchini’s Amazing Journey (Part 1)
Ron is a fellow MIT alumnus who went to Carnegie Mellon for his PhD, and subsequently has done three successful systems ventures. This story offers insights into his methodology. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the very beginning of your story. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances? Ron Bianchini: I
Successful Pivots on Product, Market, Business Model: Gigya Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Eyal Magen (Part 1)
Gigya started off with one set of market assumptions, and along the way, pivoted to a drastically different market, addressing an entirely different pain point. Four years later, it switched from an ad-supported business model to SaaS. It survived all these changes, and has now built a robust company, fueled by over $100 million of
A Textbook Case Study of Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bhavin Parikh, CEO of Magoosh (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: What happened in 2014? Bhavin Parikh: There was more growth in 2014. Also, how do we start expanding outside of GMAT and GRE? We realized that we could be a very strong company in GMAT and GRE, but to really achieve our mission and vision, we needed to expand much broader. We started
A Textbook Case Study of Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bhavin Parikh, CEO of Magoosh (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: When this happened, who else was in the company? Bhavin Parikh: When we raised in May of 2011, we made that blogger into a full-time employee. He was doing content marketing for us full-time. He was also helping us create content for our product. Then, we hired a software engineer who had interned with
A Textbook Case Study of Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bhavin Parikh, CEO of Magoosh (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Interesting. That started converting as well. This was not only traffic but it was the right traffic. Bhavin Parikh: Yes. The thing is you don’t see the conversion immediately because people need to build that relationship with you. They come to your site. They read a post and start to think, “They really know
Bootstrapping from Belgium: iText CEO Bruno Lowagie (Part 4)
Bruno Lowagie: I asked what we can do to solve this. IBM said, “We have to do it the hard way.” Actuate was a company under the Eclipse umbrella. They entered a research agreement with Gent University. The deliverable was an IP overview. During 2007, I went to the university to do my job but as soon
