Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $20M in Charleston, South Carolina

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. As part of our coverage of entrepreneurship far away from Silicon Valley, we bring you a conversation with Mike Carter, Founder of eGroup, in Charleston, South Carolina. Typically, these environments have bred bootstrapped companies, and bootstrapping using services continues to be a popular method. Here is our conversation

Read Full Article »

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped eGroup to $20M in Charleston, South Carolina

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. As part of our coverage of entrepreneurship far away from Silicon Valley, we bring you a conversation with Mike Carter, Founder CEO of eGroup, in Charleston, South Carolina. Typically, these environments have bred bootstrapped companies, and bootstrapping using services continues to be a popular method. Here is our conversation

Read Full Article »

Bootstrapping to $20 Million in Charleston, South Carolina: eGroup CEO Mike Carter (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: You seem to have a regional emphasis. Does that mean that your sales cycle has been an in-person sales cycle? Mike Carter: Yes. Traditionally, our sales process has been person to person. We have invested quite a bit in our digital presence and we are doing things from creating ourselves as an inbound

Read Full Article »

Bootstrapping to $20 Million in Charleston, South Carolina: eGroup CEO Mike Carter (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did revenue track in that timeframe? Mike Carter: The first 10 years, we were very immature from a strategy standpoint. It’s only been in the last five years that we evolved in what we’re doing, in terms of investing, and saw a much more strategic approach emerge. Quite honestly, there’s an aspect

Read Full Article »

Bootstrapping to $20 Million in Charleston, South Carolina: eGroup CEO Mike Carter (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like what you used in the beginning is a technique that we see repeatedly. I’ve written a book on this particular technique – Bootstrapping Using Services. The advantage of having services in the bootstrapping stage is that cash starts coming in early. You don’t’ have to take a long, red-ink faith

Read Full Article »

Bootstrapping to $20 Million in Charleston, South Carolina: eGroup CEO Mike Carter (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is the target customer base? Mike Carter: Our target customer base is what we call the commercial mid-market. That would be organizations between 500 to 5,000 users. They typically fall into regional healthcare providers and financial service organizations – certainly not the large global organizations but regional and national groups.

Bootstrapping to $20 Million in Charleston, South Carolina: eGroup CEO Mike Carter (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s anchor this on some dates. What year were you noodling with this idea? Mike Carter: I graduated from college in 1992. I immediately went to work for this tech startup called The Computer Group. That company was acquired in 1996 by IKON Office Solutions. It’s part of the overall document workflow type

Read Full Article »

Bootstrapping to $20 Million in Charleston, South Carolina: eGroup CEO Mike Carter (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Continuing our coverage of entrepreneurship far away from Silicon Valley, we bring you a conversation with Mike Carter, CEO of eGroup in Charleston, South Carolina. Typically, these environments have bred bootstrapped companies, and bootstrapping using services continues to be a popular method. Of late, incubators and

Read Full Article »