categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
pivot
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: People do comparison shopping all the time. Steve Yi: Exactly. Amazon does the same thing. When you look for a product on Amazon, they will actually have listings for competitive retailers. It’s a combination of insurance revenue and understanding that there is media revenue from your property that you can extract. In turn,
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 6)
Sramana Mitra: In terms of your operating expenses, how many people were involved and what kind of a P&L did you have to support within that operating margin? Steve Yi: There was three of us. One person was working with us as a contractor who eventually became our VP of Sales. Sramana Mitra: How many customers were
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 5)
Steve Yi: We were fortunate to become profitable within the second month. For that first month, we thought we could never make that math work. We were losing a lot of money in that first month. It’s specific to this business. You just have to go through that period where you’re willing to lose money. Sramana Mitra: You
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: Each of you had worked on this travel startup before, and you had sold this startup. You got a little bit of money and were willing to put some of that money into starting something else as a collective group. Steve Yi: That’s exactly right. You said it much better and succinctly than
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 3)
Sramana Mitra: What did you start next? Steve Yi: I next started a travel advertising company. After I left, it took about a year to iterate. I knew I wanted to have my own company again. I iterated on different ideas and different consulting projects. I, finally, got connected with a couple of people who I
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 2)
Sramana Mitra: Do you want to quickly summarize what you attempted in the last two startups? Steve Yi: My first startup, which was in 2004, was a customizable search toolbar platform that any publisher or website can customize and distribute to their users. The second company was a travel advertising site. It was essentially just
Bootstrapping, Pivoting, Gaining Liquidity, Scaling to Over $100 Million: MediaAlpha CEO Steve Yi (Part 1)
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Fascinating story of MediaAlpha, beautifully told by Steve, relates how the team has navigated through various experiments to over $100 million in revenue. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in
Multiple Pivots, Taking on Giants, to Over $100 Million in Revenue: Matthew Calkins, CEO of Appian (Part 7)
Sramana Mitra: The competitors who went away, were you winning their customers? Matthew Calkins: We were winning the deals that they attempted to compete in. Sramana Mitra: But people were not switching necessarily. Matthew Calkins: By and large, whoever has done that installation doesn’t want to do it again. They’re going to hang on to
