Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: One clarification, both you and Liz kept your jobs while you were raising this convertible note round. For the whole time?

Nevin Shetty: Yes. That’s the amazing part. It was just the two of us working part-time. From across the nation, Lizzie had moved at this point.

Sramana Mitra: Where is she?

Nevin Shetty: She moved back to Seattle.

Sramana Mitra: During this period, you had a working product. The MVP was in business. You were able to experiment with customer acquisition strategy. >>>

Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Did you go with offshore or onshore?

Nevin Shetty: Since it’s very high-touch front-end stuff, we wanted someone we could meet with. We chose a dev shop in New York. They had done e-commerce before. Frankly, they just had very good project management. We were able to talk with them and think through things strategically. It was very helpful because we didn’t know how to architect the website. They were seemingly helpful with that.

Sramana Mitra: How long did it take you to get a minimum viable product out?

Nevin Shetty: I would say it took seven months. >>>

Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: This is a big challenge. We do have entrepreneurs who are non-technical. Let me ask you one question before you go to the development portion. Before launching into this direction with your startup, you must have done some level of comparative analysis. Talk to me a little bit about what you unearthed in that process of looking around. What else is there? What other options are there along these lines?

Nevin Shetty: In 2013, I had the conception of building an e-commerce experience based on the blueprint of a home. We were like, “Let’s apply this to one particular market. Instead of going to general e-commerce, let’s focus on one particular niche.” We decided to focus on weddings. Wedding is a one-time life event related to the home. >>>

Bootstrapping With a Paycheck to Techstars: Nevin Shetty, CEO of Blueprint Registry (Part 1)

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

In a previous story, we showed you how Jas Grewal bootstrapped his company CareSkore with a paycheck and then got into YCombinator with a validated business. With Blueprint, we show you the same strategy as executed by Nevin Shetty to get into TechStars.

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?

Nevin Shetty: I was born in Alabama but the first memory I have is of Saudi Arabia. I spent five years in Saudi Arabia. My dad is an aeronautical engineer. I grew up in an American compound in Riyadh and had an amazing childhood. Growing up, I remember my mom teaching English to some of the Saudi princes. >>>

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Bootstrapping to $15 Million in Three Years: Connatix CEO David Kashak (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Talk to me about ROI. Supposing I am Daily Mail and I have a huge inventory. I have 100 million readers. What is your proposal to me? What can you do to my site? In terms of monetization, how much can you deliver? If I gave you access to my full inventory, what can you do to my site?

David Kashak: The big promise is, first, we’re able to help you edit your site. You’re able to come to our platform and easily create units. >>>