Bootstrapping to $33 Million: Freightwise CIO Richard Hoehn (Part 1)

Freightwise is No. 2 on the Inc. 5000 for 2018. Amazing bootstrapping story.

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?

Richard Hoehn: I grew up in Switzerland. I did an apprenticeship as a machinist – the tool and die maker. After three years, I decided I wanted to go back to school and learn more about computers and technology.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M

CEO Sal Akbani has bootstrapped Gateway Classic Cars to over $10 million in revenue. This is a great story of how a two-sided marketplace was masterfully seeded and scaled in a niche market.

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?

Sal Akbani: We have the same ancestry. My parents were from India. I was born in Pakistan. My mother is from Calcutta. My dad is from Bombay.

Sramana Mitra: I’m from Calcutta.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Ultra Mobile Founder Bootstraps to Over $100 Million

I have long believed that Go BIG or Go HOME is complete BS. I have seen entrepreneur after entrepreneur build a small but profitable, slower growth business as a first outing, followed by a much larger, higher growth business as a follow-on venture. Ultra Mobile Founder Rizwan Kassim has done exactly that. Read on to learn more.

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?

Rizwan Kassim: My mom is from East Africa. My father was born in Karachi. They both came here in the 70’s. I was born in Simi Valley, California, and lived there for about a decade and then moved up to Victorville. I went to UCLA.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Master Bootstrappers with Over $1B in Exits

There’s a GIGANTIC myth in the startup ecosystem. Go BIG or Go HOME! Raise GOBS of venture capital. Otherwise, you can’t build anything big. It’s GIGANTIC BS!

Watch this inspiring 2 minute 09 second video and learn how the Turakhia brothers have created over a billion dollars of personal wealth through significant exits without raising any venture capital:

Capital efficient ventures often end up creating a lot more money for entrepreneurs.

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Best of Bootstrapping: PrecisionLender CEO Bootstraps to Over $10M from North Carolina

CEO Carl Ryden and his co-founders have bootstrapped Precision Lender to over $10 million from North Carolina. This is a superb story, including how the company has formulated an AI agent, Andi.

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

Carl Ryden: I was born in North Carolina. I grew up in eastern North Carolina in a little town called Goldsboro. Folks don’t know where that is. It’s about halfway between Raleigh and the coast. For folks who do know, I would later confess that I’m not really from Goldsboro. I’m from an area of a county that’s closest to Goldsboro, deep in the rural part of North Carolina.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Big Barker CEO Bootstraps a Niche E-commerce Brand

We’ve talked about niche, proprietary e-commerce brands and how entrepreneurs are building businesses around different concepts. CEO Eric Shannon shares the story of Big Barker, a dog bed for large dogs.

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?

Eric Shannon: I was born in Pennsylvania in a suburb about 45 minutes outside of Philadelphia. I went to Temple University. I was a Finance major. After school, I moved to California and took a job in banking. I hated it and was terrible at it. I had a couple of other jobs and eventually discovered the internet side of the economy. I became very attached to it. I started in that industry in 2004.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Financial DNA CEO Bootstraps to $10M+ from Australia

This is another wonderful story of an Australian founder who has diligently scaled his startup to over $10 Million in revenue.

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?

Hugh Massie: I was born in Sydney, Australia. I was privately-educated at a very good private school. When I finished that, I earned a degree in Commerce and Economics at the University of New South Wales. Following that, I became a Chartered Accountant and worked with Arthur Andersen for 10 years in auditing, mainly in the tax area. I worked in the Sydney office and then in the Singapore and Thailand offices as well.

After 10 years, I wanted to go out on the street and become an entrepreneur. That was really the start of my entrepreneurial journey. I had always been an investor though, ever since the age of 20. As soon as I got my first job, I bought a house and got an investment rental property and was always doing things that were related to investing.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Power2Motivate CEO Bootstraps to $80M from Canada

Adding to our incredible roster of stories of entrepreneurs who have bootstrapped decisively, Rob Purdy’s is an incredible journey of a precise execution.

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

Rob Purdy: I was born in Ontario, Canada. Our family is very blue collar. I grew up in an environment centered around a steady out by 7 in the morning and home at 3:30 kind of routine. We were in an area of the city where General Motors dominated the local landscape. Everyone in our neighborhood worked for that company. It was an interesting background and a great lifestyle to grow up in. It also taught me that I wanted to get outside of that and move into a different environment – more entrepreneurial and less structured.

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