Best of Bootstrapping: Pre-Seed Fundraising is a Low Probability Game

For our Seed Capital series of podcasts, I’ve interviewed hundreds of investors, especially micro-VCs and angels who play an important role in the early-stage game. The toughest round of funding an entrepreneur will seek to raise is Pre-seed. How do you increase your odds? Pre-seed has the lowest probability of success. Over 99% of the

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Best of Bootstrapping: Happily Bootstrapping with Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Zoho has been a tremendous success story in the cloud and I’ve known Zoho CEO and founder Sridhar Vembu for many years. Here is my conversation from 2007, when Zoho was a new on-demand office suite. Sridhar shares his rather unorthodox but brilliantly successful entrepreneurial journey.

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me a bit about the metrics that you are willing to share. Sridhar Vembu: We have 4,000 employees now and more than 20 million users on Zoho. We have one million new users per month. We still don’t disclose revenues. The company continues to be profitable. We have never taken any outside

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How are you going to inform the market that such an option exists? Sridhar Vembu: There are two things to it. One, of course, is a good deal of traffic. Zoho is almost at the rate of a million new users per month. It’s at an increasing pace. Our horizontal line of applications

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: However, there is also another type of cloud business that has come together that follows more your mode. You’ve bootstrapped your company to scale at this point. You’ve taken your time. You haven’t done it at a VC pace necessarily. I think there are lots of niches from a cloud computing point of

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Thought Leaders in Cloud Computing: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho (Part 1)

Zoho has been a tremendous success story in the cloud. In this interview, Sridhar Vembu discusses his strategy for the next phase of growth, and his general observations about the dysfunctions in the cloud ecosystem. Compelling conversation, must read. Sramana Mitra: It’s been a while that we haven’t talked. We first did your story back

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Outsourcing: Sanjay Dhawan, CEO of Symphony Services (Part 4)

SM: You’re located in Bangalore? SD: The main sites are Bangalore and Pune, but we do have satellite offices in Mumbai and Delhi, Gurgaon. SM: Is there any thought in the company to look at other cities, more heartland cities, lower cost destinations? SD: Within India, do you mean?

Meet Four Great Bootstrappers Thursday Evening In Palo Alto

As we prepare for the launch on Entrepreneur Journeys (Volume Two): Bootstrapping Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction on June 1, I am moderating a panel this Thursday for the MIT Club of Northern California called The Art and Science of Bootstrapping. Panelists include Sridhar Vembu, Michelle Munson, Beatrice Tarka, and Paul Kocher. Please come, and introduce

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