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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
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Bootstrapping
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping All the Way
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
President CEO Adam Stern used some equipment financing, and was considering some debt financing, to scale Infinitely Virtual when we spoke in 2015. He had not used any venture capital or private equity, but had built a substantial company. Read on to learn how.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?
Adam Stern: I was born in Los Angeles to parents who came to this country in their early teens. Neither of them had attended university or college. My grandfather was denied entrance into university in Hungary on account of being Jewish. I was, early on, told that I was the hope of the family to go to university and do what my grandfather and father could never do. I grew up in a middle-class household. We didn’t want for anything but we didn’t have anything extravagant either.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Vacasa in Crowded Vacation Rental Space to $100M
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
When we spoke in 2015, Cliff Johnson and his co-founder had bootstrapped Vacasa to scale in the crowded vacation rental space. Vacasa was acquired by Oasis Collections in 2018 and became a publicly traded company in 2021.
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.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $45M from Chicago
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
RKON Technologies CEO Jeff Mullarkey had built a Managed Service Provider (MSP) business that I thought he could take to $500 million or a billion dollars in revenue when we spoke in 2015. Read on to learn why.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s begin at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Jeff Mullarkey: I’m from the Chicago area. I grew up in a modest environment. I went to Illinois State University. I graduated with a Marketing degree with little clue of what I want. Right at this moment in time, personal computers had started to emerge. I frankly had never even used one. I stumbled into taking a job selling PCs. That’s how I got into the industry. It was a little bit by fluke. It was a very small industry at that time. This was 1986. That was how I got into IT.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped a Virtual Company to Scale
If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.
There’s been some controversy around whether virtual teams scale. Taso Du Val, CEO of Toptal, scaled a sizeable business using a virtual team. Read this interview from 2015 to learn more.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal entrepreneurial journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background?
Taso Du Val: I grew up in Massachusetts and Westchester, New York. I’m a high school dropout who started Toptal at the age of 25.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Unique Vintage with a Paycheck
If you haven’t already, please study our freeBootstrapping courseand the Investor Introductions page.
Katie Echeverry, CEO and Founder of Unique Vintage, had a pharmaceutical sales job that she used to bootstrap with a paycheck for 5 years, before quitting to go full-time with her business. Here is our conversation from 2015.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Tell us where you’re from. Where did you grow up? Where were you born and raised?
Katie Echeverry: I was born in Burbank, California. I still reside in Burbank, California. I went to school and got my Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, but I ended up in sales. When I was about 26 years old, I ended up being a pharmaceutical sales rep, which I enjoyed. What I liked about sales is the harder I worked, the more money I made. I was a natural entrepreneur, but I just didn’t know the word for it. I worked really hard but that wasn’t enough for me.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $300M!
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Faisal Husain, CEO of Synechron, is one of those rare entrepreneurs who managed to grow his business with no outside financing to significant scale. We discussed his journey in 2015.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
Faisal Husain: My roots are from India, but I was actually born in West Africa in Nigeria. My parents had moved from India to Nigeria in search of jobs and they were in the education field. My father was a principal and my mother was a math teacher. While they were doing their jobs and building their careers in Nigeria, I was born there. I lived in Nigeria for 13 years. At that point, my parents decided to move back home to India. I was then home schooled for about three or four years, and then came to the United States.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped from London to $20M
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Guy Mucklow, Co-founder of PCA Predict, had bootstrapped his company to $20 million when we spoke in 2016, and at one point turned down a $100 million acquisition offer. Read how he navigated his venture.
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?
Guy Mucklow: I set my company up over 20 years ago when I was in my late 30s.
Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Meltwater to $200M
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
Jorn Lyseggen, Founder and Executive Chairman of Meltwater, started the company in Norway and scaled organically to $200 million. His fascinating journey was shared with me in 2015.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances?
Jorn Lyseggen: I was actually born in Korea. I came to Norway as a very small child. I was three years old. I actually grew up in a little farm in the middle of a deep, dark forest in Norway. You drive for hours into the deep, dark forest and then suddenly, there’s a small opening. Then, you come to a little village with 168 families. One of those families is mine.
