categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Startup Growth
Build Your Company Before Chasing Venture Capital
Are you trying to get into Y Combinator? Beware, they have a 98% rejection rate. They need to see that you are building something that can be blitzscaled with gobs of venture capital. Blitzscaling, however, is NOT the only way to build a successful company. Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later is a MUCH better strategy
The Accelerator Conundrum: 1Mby1M vs Y Combinator
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
What Makes Your Startup Hard to Copy
AI is making it easy to build ultralight startups. AI is also making it easy for copycats to flood the market with competing products. Investors HATE a market full of copycats. If you are looking to raise funding, you have to be able to establish a defensibility thesis. By and large, if you are building
How You Can Plan for an Early Exit
Did you know that the vast majority of acquisitions happen in the sub $50 million valuation range? The best way to make money off such acquisitions is to build a startup with capital efficiency. If you can bootstrap, great. If not, raise small amounts of money so that you own a large percentage of the
Why VCs Keep Saying No
Are you trying to raise money for your startup and getting rejections? It’s worth understanding WHY. VCs are looking for Velocity. Their goal is to achieve $100M in revenue in 5-7 years. How do you do that?
Best of Bootstrapping: Founder Bootstrapped to $10M Using Services
Founder Sameer Maggon discussed bootstrapping SearchStax to $10 million using services with me in 2021. Excellently navigated journey! Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, and in what kind of background? Sameer Maggon: I grew up in Delhi. I did my engineering in Computer
Bootstrapping versus Blitzscaling
There are many controversial topics swirling at the moment: Bootstrapping vs. Blitzscaling, Concept Financing, Applying to Y Combinator, and Bootstrapping with a Paycheck. In this article, please find links to specific discussions on each of those topics. You are most welcome to weigh in. Remember, Entrepreneurship = Customers + Revenues + Profits; Financing and Exit
Are You Chasing Investors Ahead of Customers?
Startups are trying to blitzscale and become Unicorns while the market around is falling apart. In the last 18 months, numerous erstwhile Unicorns have stopped growing and started failing.Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later is a MUCH better strategy than Blitzscaling with ridiculous amounts of capital. In 1Mby1M, we prefer Bootstrapping early, then raising small amounts
