Bootstrapping by Services from Wisconsin: SignalWire CEO Anthony Minessale (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What is that more? If you were to compare with Twilio, how do you compete? Where can you really make a differentiated value happen?

Anthony Minessale: Twilio is probably the first to admit that there doesn’t have to be competition to exist in this market. Head to head with Twilio, we definitely intentionally committed ourselves on taking a very low margin just to help the world understand the disparagement in the cost.

Bootstrapping by Services from Wisconsin: SignalWire CEO Anthony Minessale (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Where are you finding the most traction right now?

Anthony Minessale: Something that’s really big right now is that the customer has learned how to use VoIP. The carrier industry is very specific. It mostly is the idea of high-density SIP traffic.

Bootstrapping by Services from Wisconsin: SignalWire CEO Anthony Minessale (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: It sounds like you switched from that open-source based services company to a product company. That product company is SignalWire?

Anthony Minessale: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: Did you build SignalWire entirely by bootstrapping with services or did you raise money?

Bootstrapping by Services from Wisconsin: SignalWire CEO Anthony Minessale (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk a bit about how you built the company. You started in 2002. How did you get your first customers? How did you acquire them? Where did you focus? What was the positioning? 

Anthony Minessale: When we worked on the open source project, our primary focus was providing functionality to the missing piece. Open source is not a distinction in that early stages between end user and a customer.

Best of Bootstrapping: ActiveCampaign CEO Bootstraps Using Services to $40M

ActiveCampaign CEO Jason VandeBoom has built a disciplined, profitable business and scaled it to $40 million in 2017 revenue. The company was first bootstrapped using services, and later raised ~$20 million in funding.

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

Jason VandeBoom: I was born and raised in a small town in Wisconsin about an hour out of Milwaukee, and started in technology from a consulting side of things at a very early age. Around 13 or so, I started taking on small projects. I was always interested in engineering and design. That ultimately led me to go to art school. I chose a school in Chicago for art school. That’s what brought me to Chicago.

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Bootstrapping by Services from Wisconsin: SignalWire CEO Anthony Minessale (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What year is this happening?

Anthony Minessale: 2002.

Sramana Mitra: What was the competitive landscape like? Were RingCentral and Grasshopper around?

Anthony Minessale: It was right before that. We were alone in the wild when we were doing this.

Bootstrapping by Services from Wisconsin: SignalWire CEO Anthony Minessale (Part 1)

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

Anthony is building a very interesting programmable communication platform company that has its roots in Wisconsin.

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

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping A Virtual Company To $25M

I am a huge fan of virtual companies, and here is one that has been built with excellent execution from London by a Russian entrepreneur, Percona CEO Peter Zaitsev.

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

Peter Zaitsev: I was born in what was the Soviet Union. I studied Math and Computer Science in Moscow State University. I started my first startup company while studying.

Sramana Mitra: You were very young when you started your first company in Russia.

Peter Zaitsev: Yes. I was 19 years old.

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