Bootstraps First to $5M ARR, Raises $10M Later: Toucan Toco CEO Charles Miglietti (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about that journey. When did you start looking for customers? What did you have? Did you have an MVP?

Charles Miglietti: We sold the first pilot. There was no MVP. We built the MVP with our first customer. 

Sramana Mitra: What was the problem that you were solving for this customer?

Bootstrapping a Tech Company by an English Major: Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9 (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you stay in that advertising agency?

Kevin Groome: In 1998, I began to make a transition. There were two reasons why. One was we began to see that the advertising business was shifting. Even then, we could feel that the advertising industry’s old model, which was formed in the 60’s, was beginning to change.

Bootstraps First to $5M ARR, Raises $10M Later: Toucan Toco CEO Charles Miglietti (Part 1)

French entrepreneur Charles Miglietti tells the story of how he has bootstrapped first to $5M and then closed a $10M round recently.

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?

Bootstrapping a Tech Company by an English Major: Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9 (Part 1)

Kevin 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?

Best of Bootstrapping: Discussing the Journey Through Failure to Success

Entrepreneurs love to discuss success. Few are willing to discuss what they tried and failed at. Robly CEO Adam Robinson does a terrific job of sharing his journey through various failed experiments to a model that is now gaining traction.

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?

Adam Robinson: I was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I went to Rice University. I graduated in 2003. One of my friends had an internship at Goldman-Sachs the year before.

>>>

Bootstrapping a Marketplace: Sardor Umrdinov, CEO of Home Alliance (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Between 2016 and 2019, what are other strategic points that we should discuss in this interview?

Sardor Umrdinov: From the beginning, I would probably start with more structure till you reach the first $5 million to $10 million. After $10 million, it’s harder to scale if you don’t have the structure in place. The same thing goes for leadership.

Bootstrapping a Marketplace: Sardor Umrdinov, CEO of Home Alliance (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What is the revenue level in 2016 at the point at which you introduced this homegrown CRM system?

Sardor Umrdinov: $10 million.

Bootstrapping a Marketplace: Sardor Umrdinov, CEO of Home Alliance (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You were providing technicians for various appliances. Why do you need all these software developers?

Sardor Umrdinov: Our lead generation is through website and SEO. We do SEO locally. We pipeline those leads to our CRM. You couldn’t do it with other CRMs, so we had to build our own. It was expensive to do it here.