Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 4)

Sramana: Zaplet had a certain technology set that you felt you could apply to risk management; they did not necessarily have risk management technology. Is that a correct statement? Gunjan Sinha: Yes. It was something we felt we could leverage. I had already invested in a company called MetricStream. After I had some conversations with

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Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 3)

Sramana: What were some of the highlights of the eGain story? Gunjan Sinha: Ashu and I had built WhoWhere?, which grew to be amazingly popular. We had web-based email, White Pages, and Yellow Pages. We had a lot of traffic and a lot of emails. That is where we had an idea that perhaps other

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Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 2)

Sramana: When did you start MetricStream? Gunjan Sinha: We started MetricStream in 1999. The MetricStream we know today was created with the merger of Zaplet in 2004. Zaplet had raised a lot of money from institutional investors, and I essentially did a reverse merger to pull this current company from that environment. Shellye Archambeau served

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Managing Risk: MetricStream Chairman Gunjan Sinha (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Gunjan Sinha is the chairman of MetricStream, an enterprise-wide GRC and quality solutions company with solutions aimed at global corporations. Over his career, Gunjan has spent more than 20 years in various entrepreneurial, board, and executive positions building innovative businesses. As an Internet pioneer, he was

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Monetizing Premium Social App Ad Inventory and Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business: appssavvy CEO Chris Cunningham (Part 7)

Sramana: What was your strategy for funding appssavvy? Chris Cunningham: Our strategy for raising money was basic. We started in early 2008 by bootstrapping. Both Michael and I put our American Express cards to the limit. We got buy-in to the business on our own dime. We were talking to friends and family as well

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Monetizing Premium Social App Ad Inventory and Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business: appssavvy CEO Chris Cunningham (Part 6)

Sramana: How do you price that model ? How do you sell an activity to an advertiser? Chris Cunningham: We actually don’t sell an activity to an advertiser. We sell them an audience. Our ad is triggered by activity.

Monetizing Premium Social App Ad Inventory and Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business: appssavvy CEO Chris Cunningham (Part 5)

Sramana: One of the activity advertising concepts you talked about was branded interviews. Would you provide more details about that concept? Chris Cunningham: There was an application called Social Interview. Users could post interview questions to their friends. It was almost like a gaming behavior. We took that interview and were able to get it

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Monetizing Premium Social App Ad Inventory and Scaling a Capital-Efficient Business: appssavvy CEO Chris Cunningham (Part 4)

Sramana: How long did you carry on with your initial business model, and what were your revenue ramps in the early years? Chris Cunningham: We went from 80 partners in 2008 to several hundred in 2009. We went from just under $4 million in revenue in 2008 to $9 million in 2009 and over $20

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