Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ in Revenue Without Dropping Out: Course Hero CEO Andrew Grauer (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  We love student entrepreneurs who have managed to not only build successful businesses but have done so without dropping out of school. We also love entrepreneurs who have the discipline to get to a strong and sustainable monetization model early on in their evolution. Andrew Grauer

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Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What was the monetization model on that one? Were they monetizing well? Blaine Vess: I don’t think they were monetizing as best as they could, but both of them were making money out of Google AdSense. Flash Card Exchange had a lifetime membership for $20 a month. If you paid, you would not

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Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: But it did not pan out that way? Blaine Vess: It did not pan out, but we learned a lot in the process – mainly about a lot of the things that we were doing wrong like not having employees. We had very high margins. We were making a lot of money and

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Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In 2008, you have got one acquisition under your belt. What happens next? Blaine Vess: We ended up buying another site, which was called All Free Essays. It was another site that has been around since about 2000. It was not monetized at all. I had been reaching out to the owner for

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Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I want to know precisely what happened in 2008. What are the significant things that you did in 2008 and how did those play out? This $1.1 million, was there a concentration of colleges you were getting this from? Blaine Vess: In 2008, we launched in international markets and started the acquisition of

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Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Was Chris working full time or did he take up another job? Blaine Vess: Chris was working full time on this business. He was also doing the contract programming with me. Sramana Mitra: You guys were doing contract programming. You had a job and Chris was doing the business?

Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the motivation? If I am a student, why would I want to load up my course notes? Blaine Vess: The main motivation is to get access to other people’s course notes or research. Say you’re writing a research paper on global warming and you have a writer’s block or you’re three

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Student Entrepreneur to $10M+ Business: Blaine Vess, CEO of StudyMode (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  We’re seeing a wonderful trend of student entrepreneurs building substantial businesses without dropping out. Blaine Vess is yet another great role model. This story outlines Blaine’s entrepreneurial journey. Sramana Mitra: Blaine, let’s start with introducing our audience to you. Where did you grow up? Where were

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