If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. FairWarning Founder Kurt Long has tried different permutations and combinations of bootstrapping, several of them successfully. Listen to his perspective on each of those from when we spoke in 2015. FairWarning was acquired by Imprivata in 2018. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. FairWarning Founder Kurt Long has tried different permutations and combinations of bootstrapping, several of them successfully. Listen to his perspective on each of those from when we spoke in 2015. FairWarning was acquired by Imprivata in 2018 Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of
Sramana Mitra: You did not go to the channel and try to convince them to sell your product. You generated market demand first. This is very much the methodology that we teach as well. That’s a good strategic point to highlight. Are there other pieces that you want to discuss? Kurt Long: There are many
Sramana Mitra: Once you identified what problem you were going to work on, did you then raise money? Kurt Long: No. At this point, I had my own money. I paid people to build exactly what I wanted. I started selling it personally. I would not take any services revenue. I was determined to be
Sramana Mitra: What area did you decide to go into and how did you determine what problem you were going to solve next? Talk to me about the thought process. Kurt Long: When I started Open Network, I was scrambling. You don’t have anything. You’re trying to find a customer problem and you’re interacting with customers. By
Sramana Mitra: How long did Open Network go on? Kurt Long: Almost 10 years. Sramana Mitra: What happened then? Kurt Long: It was acquired by BMC. Sramana Mitra: What year was that acquisition? Kurt Long: I think it was 2004 or 2005. Sramana Mitra: You did not raise outside capital?
Sramana Mitra: On this topic, I’d like to probe a little bit more. Let me give you some context. We have a very significant research and curriculum material on a methodology that you followed, which we call Bootstrapping Using Services. One of our Entrepreneur Journeys Series books actually covers this as well. Let’s double-click on
Sramana Mitra: Tell me about the conditions under which you started your first company. What was that company? What was going on around that led you to that and how did you get that going? Kurt Long: I was very naive about being an entrepreneur. I was a really good software developer and had a