Bootstrapping from Guwahati: Anjan Pathak, CTO and Co-Founder of Vantage Circle (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. I am always thrilled to do stories of pioneering entrepreneurs building technology startups in remote locations. Anjan brings us into the nascent scene in Guwahati, in the North-East Indian state of Assam. Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the beginning of your journey. Where

Read Full Article »

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Here’s a synthesizing question. What can your technology do that an AI-based approach cannot do? Josh Millet: In an objective and transparent way, our technology measures key competencies, abilities, and behavior traits that we know are predictive of job success and business outcomes.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the customer acquisition strategy?  Josh Millet: When we were bootstrapping, we built our business on the back of Google. A lot of customers came in through the web. We did spend quite a bit of money on Google with paid ads. Over time, we built a great content strategy.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You went after the startups because they were hiring a lot. Intuitively, it would strike me that the large enterprise market would be more conducive to hiring evaluation solutions.  Josh Millet: Yes, we probably should have had you as an advisor back then. We would’ve figured that out quickly. When we looked at

Read Full Article »

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down on the starting of Criteria. What did you start with? How was the journey? Who was involved? What was the bootstrapping process? Josh Millet: When I was working at that other company, I started participating in interviews with applicants. We weren’t good at hiring sometimes. A lot of companies struggle

Read Full Article »

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Josh has bootstrapped Criteria to almost $5M in revenue before raising funding. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: We did a case study on Modernizing Medicine. You may be familiar with this company. This person is an experienced entrepreneur who has done it before. Their product is also a health IT product. They didn’t use an equity crowdfunding platform. They just did a very successful funding round with physicians and had

Read Full Article »

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about your financing strategy. How have you financed this venture?  Cary Breese: We’ve been a little unique. To start, we raised a seed round of funding from family, friends, and advisors. We ended up raising $3 million that way over two years. From just a family and friends network, my co-founder

Read Full Article »