Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping an Evergreen Business from Oregon

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

There is a trend among entrepreneurs wanting to keep running companies without seeking an exit. Kirstin Quinlan, CEO of Certified Languages International (CLI), tells us about one such evergreen company.

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

Kristin Quinlan: I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I went to school at the University of Oregon. My children are also there. One is graduating from there now and my daughter is currently enrolled. They are fourth-generation University of Oregon attendees. I spent a year of my education in Amherst, Massachusetts. Other than that, it’s all been here.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing Investments in Indian Startups with Anand Daniel, Accel 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 Anand Daniel.

Anand Daniel, Partner with Accel Partners, discusses Accel India’s investment strategy at length. You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping a Highly Profitable Company in Social Media Marketing

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

Founder CEO Jamie Tedford bootstrapped Brand Networks to a highly profitable, large business, leveraging the disruption in brand marketing caused by social media. He then sold minority stake in the company to a private equity firm. Excellent execution!

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?

Jamie Tedford: I was born in a town north of Boston, Massachusetts. It’s a very typical middle-class story and family. I’m third-generation Jamie Tedford. My grandfather started a family business. He was actually an MIT alumnus. He came out of MIT during the Great Depression. He went to work for a paper company and decided to start a lumber mill. He is the first of the family that I can track back who’s an entrepreneur. The business eventually turned into a commercial lumber yard. The family stayed pretty close to home. My dad went to work for him.

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Here’s a synthesizing question. What can your technology do that an AI-based approach cannot do?

Josh Millet: In an objective and transparent way, our technology measures key competencies, abilities, and behavior traits that we know are predictive of job success and business outcomes.

Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing People vs. Market with Jon Staenberg, Staenberg 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 the Investor Introductions page. Then start looking for entrepreneur – investor fit. Today I introduce you to Jon Staenberg.

Jon Staenberg, Managing Partner at Staenberg Venture Partners, has been a Seed Investor in over 400 ventures over the last 30 years. Jon draws from his long background and discusses some of what interests him to invest in a startup. He also reflects on the question People or Market: Which takes priority? You can listen to a podcast of our conversation here or watch the roundtable video below:

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Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the customer acquisition strategy? 

Josh Millet: When we were bootstrapping, we built our business on the back of Google. A lot of customers came in through the web. We did spend quite a bit of money on Google with paid ads. Over time, we built a great content strategy.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You went after the startups because they were hiring a lot. Intuitively, it would strike me that the large enterprise market would be more conducive to hiring evaluation solutions. 

Josh Millet: Yes, we probably should have had you as an advisor back then. We would’ve figured that out quickly. When we looked at the market initially we thought that the enterprise market was pretty well-served.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down on the starting of Criteria. What did you start with? How was the journey? Who was involved? What was the bootstrapping process?

Josh Millet: When I was working at that other company, I started participating in interviews with applicants. We weren’t good at hiring sometimes. A lot of companies struggle with that.