Startup Funding is a Low Probability Game

Startup funding is a low probability game. LESS than 1% GET funding. Over 99% get rejected. How do you play this game and win? Learn from great Unicorn founders like Fred Luddy (ServiceNow), Christian Chabot (Tableau), and Greg Gianforte (RightNow). Entrepreneurs typically go to VCs like beggars. Is there a better way? You bet there

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Can You Be an Entrepreneur Alone?

Are you trying to do a startup as a SOLO entrepreneur? And are people telling you that you can’t? They’re wrong. You CAN. But there are complexities you need to understand. Let’s discuss the nuances. Fred Luddy bootstrapped ServiceNow as a Solo entrepreneur bootstrapping with a paycheck. He went on to raise a lot of

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Best of Bootstrapping: Pre-Seed Fundraising is a Low Probability Game

For our Seed Capital series of podcasts, I’ve interviewed hundreds of investors, especially micro-VCs and angels who play an important role in the early-stage game. The toughest round of funding an entrepreneur will seek to raise is Pre-seed. How do you increase your odds? Pre-seed has the lowest probability of success. Over 99% of the

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Rendezvous Online Recording: October 15, 2019

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording here: Rendezvous Online with Sramana Mitra Oct 15, 2019

Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 7)

SM: Are there even any companies out there that have technologies worth acquiring that are in what you term the ERP for the IT market? FL: Some, but not too many. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Computer Associates made done dozens and dozens of acquisitions. They would approach the ERP for the IT field with

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Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 6)

SM: Your company has been disruptive to the marketplace, which has forced your competitors to change their entire business model to address your success. FL: Exactly. It’s similar to when Southwest came on the scene and dropped a whole new way of doing business for airlines into the market. We have a very different model.

Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 5)

SM: I talk with a lot of CIOs. They tell me that 25% of their architecture is cloud computing. How does the role of the service desk evolve in that scenario? FL: As these customers start to move more and different apps into the cloud, they still have to manage those applications and the vendors. 

Servicing IT: ServiceNow CEO Fred Luddy (Part 4)

SM: Who was your first enterprise customer? FL: We had a couple of big customers very early. Edmunds.com was a big customer of ours, as was Qualcomm. TIAA-CREF was another. Those companies became a beachhead for us to get follow-on customers such as Hyatt.