Sramana Mitra: Being the author of a book gives you huge credibility. Jason Cohen: Even now when everyone knows you can publish, it does. We were doing enterprise sales where credibility is even more important. I remember being with a potential customer in San Diego. Our champion inside the company threw one of our books
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go down the path of your content marketing. You said you published a book. Tell us more about what was the marketing strategy around your code review product? Jason Cohen: I have to give credit where credit is due. In ITWatchDogs, Gerry had this idea because it had just become possible to
Sramana Mitra: Did you go to work for them? Jason Cohen: I did for just a little while, but at that time, I had already started another company with Gerry’s encouragement. In fact, when we started ITWatchDogs, I was hesitant to join a startup because I thought, “Maybe I should just increase my savings a little
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Jason has done three bootstrapped startups, sold two of those, and then bootstrapped a fourth one to heavy duty venture financing. This is a great interview with a pro who knows what he is doing at many levels. Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning
Sramana Mitra: What do you do? Michael Sikorsky: I happened to be in New York. I was connected to lots of stuff around investing and crowdsourcing to venture capital. The iPhone comes out. I had that lightning bolt feeling when the Internet came out. Now, I’m a lot older. I’ve been through multiple companies. I even
Sramana Mitra: I got it. How many people did you have in the company that you were essentially renting out? Michael Sikorsky: It was very fast. It went from 0 to 65 people in nine months. Sramana Mitra: Then you sold the company to whom? Michael Sikorsky: To my business partner. It was almost like
Sramana Mitra: Give me the chronology of it. You didn’t mention raising money at any of these points. Michael Sikorsky: I raised right away as I started the company. Sramana Mitra: In Alberta? Michael Sikorsky: Yes, in Alberta. I presented to 11 investors when I was 22. Just to tell you a neat story there, the
Sramana Mitra: This is a very common scenario in technologies trying to start their first ventures. They end up building technology, which essentially turns out to be a solution looking for a problem to solve. How did you maneuver out of that situation? Michael Sikorsky: As you’re in that situation, you can feel it but you