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- The Accelerator Conundrum
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Bootstrapping to Exit
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Cleverbridge from Germany
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
We’re always impressed by entrepreneurs who manage to build sizeable companies without outside capital. Read how Founder Christian Blume maneuvered Cleverbridge to $40 million in revenue and did not want to deal with venture capital and private equity when we spoke in 2015. Cleverbridge was acquired by private equity firm EMH Partners in 2021. You can listen to our podcast interview here.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?
Christian Blume: I was born in Cologne, Germany. I moved over to the US when I was seven years old. I stayed for two years in Detroit. Then, I moved back to Germany again for a couple of years. When I was 15, I moved to London and did my International Baccalaureate over there. Then I moved back to Germany again and did my apprenticeship as a car mechanic. I then went to study Economics and went to an asset management company based out of Frankfurt, which was addressing high net worth individuals who needed investment opportunities. I was part of an advisory team there before I was tasked by my General Manager to move to the Internet in 1998. That was when everything got really important. Everybody tried to attach a .com to the ending of their company name and that made them an Internet company. I was asked to actually start a subsidiary focused on individuals who were looking at running their portfolio online and administrating it. This was when I actually got in touch with e-commerce with a company called Element Five, which was acquired in 2004 by Digital River out of the US. That gave us the opportunity to start Cleverbridge at that time.
Best of Bootstrapping: Serial Entrepreneur Bootstrapped Two Startups to Enormous Revenue
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
Oversee.net Founder and Manage.com Co-founder Fred Hsu bootstrapped two companies with huge amounts of revenue. The first, he sold to a private equity firm. The second was acquired by Criteo in 2018. We spoke in 2015, amazing story!
Sramana Mitra: Let’s get started at the beginning of your personal story. Where were your born, raised, and in what kind of environment?
Fred Hsu: I was born in Ohio. My parents were Chinese immigrants who came to the States for graduate school. They had moved to Taiwan during the communist takeover. I have an older sister. She was born in Virginia. I also have a younger brother who was born in Connecticut. We moved around a lot as kids. My dad was a defense contractor moving from one air force base to another. My mom was an accountant by trade. She fell into the insurance industry and eventually, programming.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping to Exit with David Lambert, Right Side Capital
If you have been bootstrapping and think you are ready for investors, you need to learn how investors think. First, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page. Then, start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Here is my conversation from 2019 with David Lambert of Right Side Capital Management.
David Lambert is Managing Director at Right Side Capital Management, a firm that invests small chunks of capital in capital efficient ventures. The firm is very much in line with the Bootstrapping to Exit philosophy we’ve been discussing. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:
Sramana Mitra: Tell us about yourself. Tell us about Right Side. Let’s get acquainted.
David Lambert: I have predominantly been a career entrepreneur before starting Right Side Capital. I came out to the San Francisco Bay Area to go to Stanford in the late 80’s. A month after I graduated, I started my first company.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped from Oklahoma to Exit
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
How often do you hear of a successful entrepreneurship story out of Oklahoma? Well, meet Robin Roberson, Co-founder of WeGoLook. This is our conversation from 2015. WeGoLook was acquired by Crawford & Company in 2017.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?
Robin Roberson: I was born in Oklahoma. I was raised, primarily, on a farm. There were about 12 kids in my class. I didn’t know much about the outside world other than what was there in town. I started my entrepreneurial journey in the second grade making yarn belts on the playground. I was able to talk a few of my friends into making them with me. We had quite the distributorship going with yarn belts until the Principal shut us down. When he asked us to stop making yarn belts, I started making Christmas tree ornaments to sell. He shut that down too.
