The Accelerator Conundrum: Playbook for Solo Entrepreneurs Bootstrapping an Ultralight Startup

The Accelerator Conundrum is a multipart series that challenges the prevailing wisdom of the tech startup ecosystem that entrepreneurs should Blitzscale out of the gate. Written by Sramana Mitra, the Founder and CEO of One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), the world’s first global virtual accelerator, it emphatically argues that a better strategy is to Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, focus

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Deal Radar 2008: AKQA

AKQA is an interactive ad agency driven by ideas to inspire its clients to move forward in the digital era. Some of the services AKQA provides are designing interactive experiences for its clients. It also provides content creation and distribution as well as E-commerce and technology solutions for them. The company was founded in 1995

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Deal Radar 2008: Mercado

Mercado started ten years back and is the first search engine especially for ecommerce. The company provides search, navigation and merchandising solutions that supposedly lead to sales, revenue growth and profitability for their customers. The technology behind Mercado brings the final shopper closer to the seller with every click of their mouse through a series

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Deal Radar 2008: PayCycle

PayCycle provides online payroll services for small businesses and for the accounting professionals who serve them. Their mission is to make paper-based payroll obsolete. Using a unique Do-It-With-You model, they guide users through the entire payroll procedure online – from paychecks to W-2s. The company has highly experienced professionals who have previously developed products like

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Deal Radar 2008: Facebook Woes Coming?

Facebook is the most popular social networking site providing an interactive space that helps members communicate with “friends”. The site features like ‘Wall’ and ‘Poke’ have created a vernacular amongst the youth population. It was started in February 2004, by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. “Are we Facebook friends?” has now become a social phenomenon! Angel

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Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 6)

SM: What stage are you at now? Revenue? Profitability? Traffic? Customers? Users? Advertisers? Any other metrics you track? CL: We ran the company at break-even for the first three years. We didn’t have a choice. All the profits went right back into the company (and a few to American Express and Mastercard). Now that we have

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eBay vs Amazon: My Take

So, I asked you to think about whether eBay or Amazon is a better company. I pointed out that Amazon’s stock is performing a lot better than eBay’s this year. One of you rightly pointed out that Amazon’s margins are a problem. Indeed, as I discussed at length in the series we just completed, Amazon

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eBay vs. Amazon: Which is a Better Company?

Holiday shopping is on everyone’s mind. All e-commerce players stand to gain. Here are 4 charts that compare eBay and Amazon’s performance. I would like you to take a look at them and provide your comments on which one is a better company, and why.