Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Open Opportunities with Hemant Mohapatra, Lightspeed Venture Partners

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 Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Hemant Mohapatra.

Hemant Mohapatra, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, India, talks about some of the large, open opportunities in the Indian market that are of interest to him. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here and watch the roundtable video below:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping 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. 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.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Investing Across Sectors in India with Swapna Gupta, Qualcomm Ventures

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 Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Swapna Gupta.

Swapna Gupta, Senior Investment Manager at Qualcomm Ventures, explains the firm’s investment strategy. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping Hotelplanner.com to $20M with Intelligent Financial Engineering

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

Tim Hentschel, CEO of Hotelplanner.com, built an excellent company with quite unorthodox financial engineering decisions that have played out very well for him. Read on to learn some out-of-the-box thinking.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you from? Where were your born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Tim Hentschel: I was from the West Coast originally, from as far as Hawaii where my family owns some hotels and also a large tour operation company. I left Hawaii when I was 13 to move to Carmel, California where I went to high school. Then, I moved east to New York where I attended Cornell University for hospitality management.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Investment Strategy With Deepak Jeevankumar, Dell Technologies 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 Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Deepak Jeevankumar.

Deepak Jeevankumar, Managing Director at Dell Technologies Capital, discusses his fund’s focus and preferences. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Serial Entrepreneur Bootstrapped Two Startups to Huge 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.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Investing in Concept Stage Startups with Matt Holleran, Cloud Apps Capital Partners

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 Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Matt Holleran.

Matt Holleran, General Partner at Cloud Apps Capital Partners, talks about his firm’s investment thesis in what he calls Series A. His is one of the rare firms that invest at the concept stage. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us about yourself,a bit of your background, and about Cloud Apps.

Matt Holleran: The most interesting market in the world and business problems to work on are business software problems. I’ve been in the business software industry for 25 plus years in leading customer support companies in the enterprise software world like Salesforce.com, Clarify, and Datasweep. I started my career at Morgan Stanley. Then I was at another firm called Emergence Capital Partners for six years prior to starting Cloud Apps Capital Partners in 2014.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Startups in Africa with Osayi Igharo, Ripple VC

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 Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Osayi Igharo.

Osayi Igharo, Managing Partner at Ripple VC discusses startups and venture capital in Africa. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

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