Reinventing a British Company, American-Style: Steve Millard, CEO of Kognitio (Part 2)

Sramana: What prompted you to leave the startup space and rejoin IBM? Steve Millard: I was burned out. There is a lot of stress doing three heavy-duty startup roles. I was burnt out on the long hours, stress and pressure. I needed a break, and all three startups were successful. IBM came to me and

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 7)

Sramana: What was the most substantial change that occurred with your business after 2007? Bimal Patwari: After 2007, the biggest change was the size of projects we worked on. We began working on airports, hospitals, and convention centers. That required large teams of up to 40 people working on a project at the same time.

Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 6)

Sramana: Were you able to change the layers of service you provided from 2-D to 3-D? Would you talk about the technologies you were standardizing on? Bimal Patwari: Absolutely. There were several companies that offered modeling software. However, Autodesk has a worldwide presence. Everyone works on their platform. We also bought some other software solutions

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 5)

Sramana: Aside from having a loyal workforce, you have also created a workforce that operates in a niche market. There are not many places in India that your workers are going to be able to move to and leverage American architectural knowledge. Bimal Patwari: That is a factor as well. We invest a lot of

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 4)

Sramana: Why did you elect to establish your U.S. office in Houston? Was that where you client was based? Bimal Patwari: Our client was in Tennessee. I elected to establish the office in Houston because I had friends there. Houston in an engineering hub, and there is a lot of oil and gas industry there.

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Once you received your first order, what were your next steps? Bimal Patwari: Immediately I found a team of four people from the students I had trained. I had one experienced person, and the rest were my top students. I used that team to get us started. All of the architects typically work

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 2)

Sramana: During the five-year period that you ran the computer-aided design (CAD) training program, what kinds of business were you able to build? What was the revenue level like? Bimal Patwari: My father gave me five lakh rupee, which was about $12,000. I always believed in myself, and I always pushed myself to be the

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Bootstrapping to $6M from Durgapur, West Bengal: Pinnacle CAD CEO Bimal Patwari (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Sramana: Bimal, let’s start with your personal story. Where does your entrepreneurial journey begin? Bimal Patwari: I went to college at IIT Kharagpur where I studied electronics, and then did mygraduate work in marketing and finance at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.