Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin (Part 5)

Sramana: You have made several references to your customer communities and lifestyles. Do you have an online community of users centered on a particular lifestyle which your experts moderate? For example, do you have a moderated hunters forum? Mark Levitin: Very much so. We have tens of thousands of posts on our forums. It is

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Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin (Part 4)

Sramana: Your second market segment, which you call your ‘heroes’ segment, is very interesting because it would seem to be one that could be B2C and B2B. Mark Levitin: Yes, we have individuals who work professionally in those areas who will make purchases from us on their own accord, as well as fire departments or

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Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin (Part 3)

Sramana: Did you own LOMO America Inc, and did you make LOMO America Inc an investor in OpticsPlanet.com? Mark Levitin: I did not have 100% ownership. I was a shareholder. LOMO America Inc was not an investor in OpticsPlanet.com. I funded it personally with some other partners.

Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin (Part 2)

Sramana: How long did you operate as an importer and distributor of LOMO? Mark Levitin: We did that for a number of years and grew the business to a point where it generated $10 million in revenue. It was a combination of product development and wholesale distribution. We never sold direct, which is very important

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Bootstrapping A 100M+ E-Commerce Company: OpticsPlanet CEO Mark Levitin (Part 1)

Mark Levitin is the CEO and founder of OpticsPlanet, an online supplier and retailer of technical and high-performance gear. OpticsPlanet was founded in 2000 and has since been recognized as a leading online retailer by Inc. Magazine and Internet Retailer Magazine. Mark studied engineering in the Soviet Union, where he worked as a medical engineer

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Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 7)

Sramana: I am aware of the complexities involved with risk management systems. There have been several instances where I have encountered the issue. It involves a highly specialized area of expertise. How did you build knowledge of the overall risk domain? Gunjan Sinha: That brings up good lesson for entrepreneurs. You need to find a

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Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 6)

Sramana: What impact did your aggressive marketing campaign have on your company and your marketplace? Gunjan Sinha: The market shifted from being in an early evangelical phase to something that had broad-based adoption. Customers stopped thinking of it as something that was nice to have and started thinking of it as something they had to

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Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 5)

Sramana: What was your rationale behind launching ComplianceOnline.com? Gunjan Sinha: We viewed it as a way to bring the community together. It is a way to distribute best practices for compliance, risk, and governance under one umbrella. We have experts who share what works across different regulations, risk areas, countries, and regions. I wanted to

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