Building the Electronic Arts of Casual Gaming: PlayFirst CEO John Welch (Part 8)

SM: How did you finance the different phases of the company? Seed? Angel? VC? Corporate? JW: I supplied a very small amount of seed capital that basically covered expenses while we secured our first round of venture funding. The $5 million Series A was led by Trinity Ventures and Mayfield Fund in mid-2004. Rustic Canyon

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Selecting Great Microfinance Partners (Part 1)

By Guest Author Robert Lowry, Unitus The challenge of finding great microfinance institution partners is one every microfinance fund faces. At Unitus, selecting the right partners is critical to reaching our growth goals. We’re often asked, How do you select your partners? This article will answer that question by providing a brief overview of the

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Jim Satloff & Neal Goldman’s AI Engine, Inform (Part 5)

SM: Let’s discuss your financial history, in the final segment of the conversation. Who financed the company at the very beginning? I assume it was some of Neal’s Capital IQ proceeds that went into Inform. JS: It was friends and family, yes. SM: Did you raise Venture money? How much? From whom?

Jim Satloff & Neal Goldman’s AI Engine, Inform (Part 4)

SM: What is the business model of your company? JS: As I showed you, Sramana, we have 2 different business models, one a fee-for-service model that has a consistent, recurring revenue stream, and a revenue-share, ad-based model, which is more consistent with the lighter implementation of our products that I demoed for you. SM: What

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Taking on Business Intelligence: Lucidera CEO Ken Rudin (Part 7)

SM: What stage are you at now? Revenue? Profitability? Traffic? Customers? Users? Any other metrics you track? KR: We launched our service in Q2 of this year, and the response has been fantastic. We’ve already signed up our first set of paying customers, which is a great milestone for us. Initially, our primary goals are

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Re-engineering the Book Business: Blurb CEO, Eileen Gittins (Part 5)

SM: How did you penetrate the market and get early traction? EG: Word of mouth driven by a great and viral product and turbo charged with amazing PR. SM: What stage are you at now? Revenue? Profitability? Traffic? Titles? Any other metrics you track? EG: Blurb expects turnover between $5-10MM in 2007, its first full

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Re-engineering the Book Business: Blurb CEO, Eileen Gittins (Part 2)

SM: What was the market landscape like when you founded the company? EG: Well for one thing, Blurb was a very contrarian play at the time. VCs were funding blogging platforms and social networks and online plays – and here we were taking bits back into atoms. But fortunately I had good relationships in the

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Happily Bootstrapping: Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu (Part 2)

Sridhar’s experience in bootstrapping is something to learn from, especially for entrepreneurs in India, who keep complaining about the lack of funding availability from venture sources. Along the way, he weathered many storms, as all good entrepreneurs learn to do. SM: How did you fund your early initiative? SV: It was all bootstrapped. My wife

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