Best of Bootstrapping: Pramata Founder Bootstrapped in Minnesota

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Minnesota seems to be developing well as a hub for tech startups. With a strong culture of bootstrapping, we’re seeing a lot of entrepreneurs building high growth businesses. Here is my conversation from 2015 with Praful Saklani, Founder and CEO of Pramata.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your personal journey. Tell me a bit about where you were born and raised and in what kind of circumstances.

Praful Saklani: I was actually born in the United Kingdom. My family is from North India. When I was four years old, we moved from the UK to Minneapolis. Throughout that whole process of growing up in Minnesota, I also traveled back to India, at least, once every two years. We’d spend a lot of time with my family there. I would say that I actually grew up both in the US and India. Even when I visit India, I would actually spend time in villages and up in the mountain. It’s a nice broad perspective of a good mid-western upbringing and a good north Indian upbringing too. That’s a bit of a cultural context.

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Best of Bootstrapping: OnSIP CEO Mike Oeth Bootstrapped in Pennsylvania

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The theme of entrepreneurs building robust companies without outside capital continues in OnSIP CEO Mike Oeth’s story.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your personal story. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

Mike Oeth: I was born in the MidWest, specifically in Speedway, Indiana. It’s the home of Indianapolis 500. I was very lucky in my early life to have three mentors who helped shape different parts of who I am. First, obviously, is my dad. He is a mechanical engineer and electrical engineer. He’s retired now but he had worked for General Motors. He was designing aircraft engines. He was very supportive when, in the seventh or eighth grade, I wanted to spend the money that I made that summer cutting grass to go and buy a computer. I bought a Ti-99/4A. It was one of the first personal computers out there.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped VistaVu to $10M from Canada

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Jory Lamb, CEO / Founder of VistaVu Solutions, started as an entrepreneur as a 23-year old in rural Canada. He shared his 18 year journey with me in 2014.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Jory Lamb: I grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada. I was also born there. My dad was a schoolteacher and my mom ran local food stores called Red Roosters. We used to own three Red Roosters, which would be the equivalent of 7-11 stores in the late 70s to the mid 80s. I went on to the University of Saskatchewan and graduated with a business degree.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Ingenious Med was Bootstrapped with a Paycheck from Atlanta

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Here is Ingenious Med Founder Steve Liu’s early story, yet another instance of a very successful company being built in the bootstrapping using a paycheck mode.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised, and in what kind of circumstances?

Steve Liu: I was born in the United States. I was born in DC and lived in Virginia my whole life. My parents were immigrants but not your typical immigrants. My father came to UVA for his undergraduate studies. I grew up pretty typical with Asian parents. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

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Best of Bootstrapping: HighQ was Bootstrapped Using Services from London

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Continuing with our Bootstrapping Using Services coverage, we bring you HighQ Founder CEO Ajay Patel’s story from London.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with some back story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?

Ajay Patel: I was born in London about 42 years ago. I’ve lived here all my life. My origins are actually Indian. My father is from India and my mother was born in Fiji, but she’s of Indian descent.

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Bootstrapping Using Services to $10M: Zimit CEO James Cramer (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: That positioning is sharp and well-defined. Does that continue to be your sweet spot?

James Cramer: It continues to be the biggest line share. It is where we focus the most. What we added that expanded our market was partnerships. We sought professional services automation platforms that targeted the same customers knowing that they don’t have our functionality. If they did, we partnered with them and added a competitive differentiation in that deal.

Bootstrapping Using Services to $10M: Zimit CEO James Cramer (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Three out of the fifteen customers you started the process with converted into customers. What kind of average deal size did they convert at?

James Cramer: The initial deal size was maybe $50,000 to $75,000 in ARR.

Sramana Mitra: What time frame are we talking about?

Bootstrapping Using Services to $10M: Zimit CEO James Cramer (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Tell me how you went about it. You used the lesson that you learned on bootstrapping using services. Tell me more about how you applied that principle to this business.

James Cramer: The first thing that we did was, we got into a room with a whiteboard. It was just the two of us. Because we are such experts in this topic, we thought that we would give it a week or two and we will have this thing all white boarded out, and we’ll have a good model of what the problem is and the corresponding solution. We can then start building.