Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Vacasa Co-Founder Cliff Johnson (Part 2)

Cliff Johnson: After law school, I ended up working at a tax firm in Colorado and gained a lot of experience there. I worked with a lot of small businesses and mid-sized businesses, which was very invigorating for me. I was interested in tax law but I was always more interested in their business story and figuring out where things were going well or what they were doing wrong. I next worked for a larger firm in Phoenix for about a year and a half working mergers and acquisitions, which I wasn’t very passionate about.

I moved back into a smaller firm in San Francisco doing tax law. I moved around a little bit after law school. I really dug into the companies and saw myself being more of an entrepreneur than being passionate about tax laws for the rest of my career. I was at a crossroads where essentially I was going to stay in law but was ready to start out on my own . >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What did you start with? Were you bootstrapping the company?

Sunny Singh: Yes, I took about 18 to 20 credit cards. That was seed money for Edifecs. I had no concept of VCs. I was not business savvy. That was how Edifecs got started. I’ve never run a business before.

Sramana Mitra: How long did you go on in this solo entrepreneur working out of the apartment?

Sunny Singh: In about two years, we moved into our first office, which was an old motel-turned office by a stingy, frugal landlord who had sheep in the back. Interestingly, the first night we moved in there, there was no security. I was so scared. I slept in the office at night. We hired a team of about six or seven people who were doing sales and some development. >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Vacasa Co-Founder Cliff Johnson (Part 1)

Vacasa has bootstrapped to scale in the crowded vacation rental space. Read how!

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

Cliff Johnson: I actually have a fairly unique background, at least for the US anyway. I was born in New Jersey. I’ve lived there until about I was 12 and then moved to a small farm town in Missouri where we had an 80-acre farm. I learned a lot of different skills out there. That was my initial upbringing. My dad is a welder pipefitter.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you go to college?

Cliff Johnson: There’s this small school in Missouri called Drury University. It’s a small school in Springfield, Missouri.

Sramana Mitra: What did you study? >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What year does that bring us up to when you finished your Microsoft gig?

Sunny Singh: 1996.

Sramana Mitra: The Internet is now in full swing and you wanted to be an entrepreneur. Within that year that you worked at Microsoft, you figured out what it was that you were going to do your company around? What was that?

Sunny Singh: I was fascinated. I thought what if I could transfer technology to India. That could be very interesting because I could help a lot of companies go from US to India. I did my market analysis. I didn’t like it. I ran a number of ideas back and forth and said, “My background is in integration, supply chain, and software. These are areas that I enjoy but not necessarily the most passionate about.” I had very strong opinions in that area. I always want to learn and figure things out. I want to listen to people and figure out what could be wrong. That’s what led to the genesis of Edifecs. >>>

Bootstrap the First Venture, Raise Money for the Second: cVidya CEO Alon Aginsky (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I think your point is also that there are different kinds of employees. There are certain people who are startup type of employees.

Alon Aginsky: Right. You have to be very precise about the people you hire. Most of the people that are in cVidya are veterans. Those are the people who join you for the long run. People that come for you to see if they can make a quick exit are not the right people for startups.

Sramana Mitra: The problem unfortunately is that in Silicon Valley right now, the market is full of these kinds of people who are looking for these quick exits. It’s mercenaries versus missionaries as we call them. In a talent war market where it’s very difficult to hire and be selective, you take what you get. It compromises the culture of the company. Where have you been doing all your team building? >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 1)

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

Sunny has built a very interesting healthcare IT company, overcoming serious challenges. Inspiring story of a bootstrapped success.

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?

Sunny Singh: Give or take, I’ve spent half my life in the US and half my life in India. I grew up in India and finished my undergraduate studies there. Then, I came to the US at the age of 23 to do a couple of Master’s programs. I did three jobs and then started Edifecs in 1996.

Going back to my roots in India, I come from a middle-class family. My father was an international ski hockey player. He played for the Indian team. That was his passion in life. My mother was a homemaker. She focused her life on the kids and our education and making sure that we got everything we needed. >>>

Bootstrap the First Venture, Raise Money for the Second: cVidya CEO Alon Aginsky (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You said you started the company while you were still running the other one in 2001.

Alon Aginsky: I finished all my responsibilities in the call accounting company in 2001. After the bubble burst, I started the cVidya journey. That was a different startup. We bootstrapped it in the beginning. We completed our institutional A round in 2004. From that point to today, we have completed four equity rounds of total $42 million. In 2010, we acquired a company in Israel called ECtel for $21 million in cash. The company raised $42 million but half of it went to acquiring another company. We grew the company on our own and with the help of the acquisition we managed to double the size of the company. Today, we are a leader in the analytics space in telecom. We employ close to 300 employees in 15 locations around the world and serve over 150 telecom operators in almost 70 countries.

Sramana Mitra: In that journey, what can you share as things that would help entrepreneurs learn from your experience? >>>

Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I imagine, given what you’re doing right now, you’re already substantially profitable.

Josh Levy: We run a profitable business. We try to invest every dollar back whether it’s additional hires, marketing, or content licensing. We still see so much opportunities in data and where the broader space can go.

Sramana Mitra: That’s actually an interesting point for businesses that are bootstrapped. If you look at your business metrics, how much profit are you generating that you then decide to funnel into growth? How much year-over-year growth are you able to accomplish? Whatever you feel comfortable sharing. >>>