If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Kevin O’Connor is a serial entrepreneur with a track record of success. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a BS in electrical engineering in 1983. He was the founder and VP of Research at ICC, which was acquired by DCA in 1992. He was
Sramana: Do you have any unique challenges that you overcame? Most entreprenuers have a chicken and egg challenge that they have to overcome. Jeff Nobbs: We definitely had a chicken and egg problem with our merchant relationships. To work with Victoria Secrets, JC Penny and others you have to be more than just a little
Sramana: When you had just five employees, were you all getting paid? Did you and your co-founder get paid? Jeff Nobbs: My co-founder and I were barely getting paid. We were making minimum wage. We paid everyone else in equity and cash. Their salaries were a little under market, but not drastically. We made up
Sramana: You said you raised a million dollars of funding. When did you raise that funding? Jeff Nobbs: We raised money every few months for a couple of years. We have not raised money since 2011. Our valuation grew every time we raised money. We have a lot of shareholders now. Looking back, it would
Sramana: You were chugging along, making some progress, and then you hit an inflection point. What was that inflection point and what led up to that? Jeff Nobbs: The inflection point was the holiday shopping season in 2011. I don’t think there is any one thing that led up to it. We had 20% month
Sramana: You started hiring after being awarded 25,000 dollars for winning the business plan competition. However, that is not a lot of money. Whom were you hiring? Jeff Nobbs: More than anything winning the business plan competition was a nod of approval from the University which helped us raise more money. Over the course of
Sramana: Why would stores offer cash back to customers? Jeff Nobbs: We think of it as a win, win, win. For stores, we are an outsourced marketing arm. We not only drive new customers, but we also make their existing customers more loyal by offering cash back on every purchase. If you are an Extrabux.com
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. Jeff Nobbs is the founder and CEO of Extrabux, a highly regarded shopping rewards site. He co-founded Extrabux as a student at the University of Southern California in 2006. Two years later, Extrabux was submitted to the USC business plan competition, where it won first place.