Best of Bootstrapping: Queue-It Bootstraps from Denmark to the US

Camilla Ley Valentin, Co-Founder of Queue-It, tells a wonderful story of capital-efficient entrepreneurship, including scaling a company born in Denmark that now has 40% of its business in the US.

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

Camilla Ley Valentin: I come from a creative family. My father was a child TV star back in the 70’s and 80’s, which was when I was born in 1973. At that time, you can imagine that there weren’t many TV stations in Denmark where I’m from. We were part of a mini celebrity family and worked a lot in the entertainment industry.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstraps with a Paycheck to $15M from Tennessee

GreenPal CEO Gene Caballero shares a fantastic story of a founder duo bootstrapping with a paycheck, now growing from $5M to $15M in one year, with a virtual team of freelancers. Your classic 21st century internet business. No outside financing whatsoever!

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?

Gene Caballero: I was born in Lima, Peru. My dad’s side of the family are all entrepreneurs. My grandfather had his own propeller business. We made propellers for boats. My dad actually has that business now. I’m the black sheep. I’ve gone into the technology side as opposed to the manufacturing of propellers.

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Best of Bootstrapping: English Major Bootstraps a Tech Company

Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9, has done an excellent job of bootstrapping his tech company without a tech background. Inspiring story for many in his shoes.

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?

Kevin Groome: I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. I went to school there. I had the good fortune, in those early years, to be around a bunch of people who weren’t famous at that time but went on to be very famous. I went to History class with Jeff Bezos. I went to English Literature class with Michelle Obama, and I even went to acting class with Brooke Shields.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstraps in Europe, Raises Money and Goes Global in the US

We’re seeing some excellent European companies make successful transitions into becoming global software companies. MP Objects CEO Martin Verwijmeren shares an excellent and inspiring story for European startups to emulate.

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?

Martin Verwijmeren: I’m from the Netherlands but living in Boston these days. Before moving to Boston, I lived in Amsterdam. I was working for our European headquarters in Rotterdam. Nowadays, I’m working from our US headquarters in Boston.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstraps First to $5M ARR, Raises $10M Later

French entrepreneur and Toucan Toco CEO Charles Miglietti tells the story of how he has bootstrapped first to $5 million and then closed a $10 million round.

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?

Charles Miglietti: I’m from France. I grew up in Normandy. I did engineering. I’m married with three kids. 

Sramana Mitra: You still live in Normandy?

Charles Miglietti: I live in Paris now. I learned programming, AI, and data analytics in Ecole. Just after college, I did an internship with Apple in Portland. Then I started working on my first company. We did summaries of web-based content.

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Building a Capital Efficient Startup from Nashville: David Stange, CEO of Beachy (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Where has Tennessee been an advantage? It sounds like you’re not scaling on the basis of these telephone calls. But you had to pound the pavements from a sales point of view through an online channel.

David Stange: Yes. Nashville has been an advantage for us because we have direct  flights to every market that we service out of Nashville. The travel within Florida is garbage. You cannot get from Panama City Beach to Tampa, Panama City Beach to Fort Lauderdale, or Panama City Beach to Fort Myers. It’s very disconnected.

PaaS: Bootstrapping by Piggybacking

We’ve discussed all kinds of creative bootstrapping mechanisms in this series. My #BigIdeas2020 contribution is yet another technique that I believe would be particularly relevant and powerful going forward.

Building a Capital Efficient Startup from Nashville: David Stange, CEO of Beachy (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: It’s B2C?

David Stange: B2B. Our product is strictly B2B. We have a B2B2C element. We currently have hundreds of hotels that use the Beachy system. It’s a three-part solution. We have an integrated online booking engine. When I make my hotel reservation, I can see a map and I’m prompted to reserve my beach chairs in advance of my stay.