Paulo Rosado is CEO of OutSystems, one of the very few enterprise software companies out of Europe, and they have succeeded in building a substantial global business.
Art Papas, CEO and Co-founder at Bullhorn, discusses how he pivoted a venture-funded startup, bootstrapped it to product-market fit and momentum, raised venture capital again to take out his original investors, and is now getting ready to go public. He also reiterated his more fundamentals-focused philosophy, emphasizing the need to attain product-market fit before raising funding.
Tim Hentschel, CEO at HotelPlanner and Meetings.com, has bootstrapped his company to $25M in revenue, growing 20% y-o-y organically. He emphasizes our mantra of entrepreneurship = customers + revenues + profits, financing, exit, valuation all being optional. Of course, today’s atmosphere is so frothy that such fundamental-oriented thinking has few takers.
Tom Foremski, Publisher of SiliconValleyWatcher.com, discusses the future of journalism and provides his views on a new business opportunity that he foresees: Media-as-a-Service (MaaS).
Anant Agarwal is CEO of edX and my former professor at MIT. We have a wide ranging and comprehensive discussion on the future of higher education, complete with startup ideas and analysis of entrepreneurial ventures within education. Definitely worth a look, if the subject interests you.
Rather than reinventing the wheel as you build your startup, you should be trying to learn the lessons of those who have successfully walked the path you are on before you. Here are the startup stories of a diverse group of entrepreneurs who have all built profitable businesses. Have a listen to these approximately 30-minute
Caleb Sima, a world-class security expert and serial entrepreneur, was working on his security startup, BlueBox Security (acquired by Lookout in 2016), at the time of this discussion. If security is your interest, this is a great session to listen to.
Henry Schuck, Co-founder and CEO of DiscoverOrg, is a first-time entrepreneur who has bootstrapped his company to $25 million ARR, and then raised private equity financing from TA Associates. Henry sees a clear path to $100 million. Very inspiring story!