From 0 To 31 Million Dollars With Search Engine Marketing & Inventory Financing: Kim Pedersen, CEO of 1000 Bulbs (Part 3)

Sramana: How did you handle the e-commerce transactions when you first launched the website? Did you just generate leads that you would complete by visiting in person or over the phone? Kim Pederson: I would put listings of our inventory online, and visitors could print out a copy of our inventory list and mark the

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From 0 To 31 Million Dollars With Search Engine Marketing & Inventory Financing: Kim Pedersen, CEO of 1000 Bulbs (Part 2)

Sramana: What was the first thing you did with the $5,000 you had in order to start your own business? Kim Pederson: I spent $3,200 of it on a computer. Even at that time, I don’t think my brain stem was connected to my cerebral cortex yet. It was a bad mistake but it worked

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From 0 To 31 Million Dollars With Search Engine Marketing & Inventory Financing: Kim Pedersen, CEO of 1000 Bulbs (Part 1)

Kim Pederson is the CEO and founder of 1000 Bulbs, an award-winning business of more than 100 employees which offers everything from simple household light bulbs to cutting-edge specialty lighting systems. He launched 1000Bulbs.com in 1996 after working as regional and national recruiter for two national lighting distributors. Today, 1000Bulbs.com enjoys double-digit sales growth, and

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Scrappy Entrepreneurship At Its Best: Fresh Diet CEO Zalmi Duchman (Part 8)

Sramana: What is that deal going to look like from a business structure point of view? Zalmi Duchman: It is a straight up revenue deal. The menu is ours and we are running the operations.

Scrappy Entrepreneurship At Its Best: Fresh Diet CEO Zalmi Duchman (Part 7)

Sramana: In 2008 when Lehman Brothers was declaring bankruptcy, you decided to raise money. Were you successful? Zalmi Duchman: No, I was not. I did not even have a business plan. It was a year and a half later before we took money. At the end of 2008 we did $5.5 million, but I was

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Scrappy Entrepreneurship At Its Best: Fresh Diet CEO Zalmi Duchman (Part 6)

Sramana: How many kitchens were you running, and how many cities did you have this service in? Zalmi Duchman: In 2008, we had three kitchens outsourced in Miami, New York, and Chicago.

Scrappy Entrepreneurship At Its Best: Fresh Diet CEO Zalmi Duchman (Part 5)

Sramana: So you took out an SBA loan for $900,000 and used that to acquire operations in Chicago and New York, and to expand your Florida operation. How much did you have to put towards the SBA loan? Zalmi Duchman: I had to put $200,000 toward it, which meant I had to mortgage my condo.

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Scrappy Entrepreneurship At Its Best: Fresh Diet CEO Zalmi Duchman (Part 4)

Sramana: What did you put on your menus? Zalmi Duchman: We bought all the Zone Diet books and did our own twists on those menus. We tried to stick to the 40/30/30 concept [eating 40% percent carbohydrates, 30% percent protein, and 30% fat] back then. Today we have moved away from that. The menus back

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