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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
entrepreneur journeys
20-Year Journey of a Fat Startup with Major Pivots: Scott Sellers, CEO of Azul (Part 1)
VCs invest in startups that go from zero to $100M in 5 to 7 years. It has taken Azul almost 20 years to make that journey. Scott discusses the pivots and strategic shifts that have made the journey possible. With patience and persistence, and with an excellent two-pronged Open Source strategy, Scott has built Azul
Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an EdTech Company to $10M: Boom Cards CEO Mary Oemig (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: The $10 million in revenue, was that also 50/50? Mary Oemig: Yes. It’s pretty standard that it splits that way. There is some seasonality. The pandemic was this weird surge. This school year is the new baseline, but the pattern has been consistent over the years. Sramana Mitra: Is this still bootstrapped?
From Brazil to a US HRTech Success Story: Talentify: Othamar Filho (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: At what point did you start to get a steady stream of new customers? Othamar Filho: It was in the middle of 2018 – a year and a half later. We started to see revenue from our direct clients grow. The reason was we were simplifying the product. What will help them make
Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an EdTech Company to $10M: Boom Cards CEO Mary Oemig (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: All this is developed by Eric and your Vietnamese developer? Mary Oemig: We now have a much bigger team. The original was developed by someone who left. We couldn’t continue to pay him and has come back. Eric and Zach were our early developers. We now have about five US-based engineers with one
From Brazil to a US HRTech Success Story: Talentify: Othamar Filho (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: How did Cielo find you? Othamar Filho: Three years before, they had a scout go to Brazil and to many other Latin American countries to talk to RPO companies there. I had an RPO company in Brazil. That person was at Cielo. When I had the solution ready, I showed it to him.
Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an EdTech Company to $10M: Boom Cards CEO Mary Oemig (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: In the 2012 to 2018 period, you were moonlighting and being creative with your bootstrapping. Was it just you and Eric? Mary Oemig: Yes. Starting in 2016, we paid for a developer in Vietnam. We trusted the provider. We felt comfortable with the pricing. They gave us an early discount. Sramana Mitra: What
From Brazil to a US HRTech Success Story: Talentify: Othamar Filho (Part 1)
Brazilian entrepreneur Othamar Filho identified an HRTech problem to solve while building a business in Brazil. Read how he navigated his way to building a successful company in the US. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where are you born, raised, and in what kind of
Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an EdTech Company to $10M: Boom Cards CEO Mary Oemig (Part 2)
Mary Oemig: We did what I would recommend to every single entrepreneur – a lot of listening tours. We talked to our future customers. We talked to teachers. We learned that teachers were trying to hire developers around the world to turn what they knew into games. They were losing a lot of money doing
