From Hard Core Techie to Successful Entrepreneur: Francis Dinha, CEO of OpenVPN (Part 1)

Francis has bootstrapped OpenVPN to $3M ARR with JUST $1M in financing. Wonderful story!

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

Francis Dinha: I was born in northern Iraq in a place called Amadiya. I lived there until I was six years old. Due to the Baghdad-Iraqi war, we had to escape. There was a lot of bombing. I remember the bombing of our village. It reminds me of the current situation in Ukraine. We had to escape to Baghdad.

Best of Bootstrapping: How Can You Play the Low-Probability Game of Start-up Funding Intelligently?

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

Let’s start with a quote from Marc Andreessen:

“At our venture capital firm we only invest in a sort of Silicon Valley–style tech. We see 3,000 inbound deals a year. And those are inbound and coming through our referral network, so those are sort of prequalified. We can do maybe 15 or 20 investments out of the 3,000 a year. So I like to say our day job is crushing entrepreneurs’ hopes and dreams. Our main skill is saying no, and getting people to not hate us.” Source: Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen – Fortune Management

I run One Million by One Million (1Mby1M), a global virtual accelerator for startups. 2022 is our twelfth year supporting entrepreneurs.

Thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs have approached us for help with their funding at a stage where their chances of getting funding is ZERO. We can’t help them, regardless of how powerful our investor connections are. We can’t help a startup get funding before they become fundable. It pains me to see how many entrepreneurs have no idea what makes a startup fundable.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Why is Bootstrapping So Important?

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

You may have read my recent Bootstrapping to an Exit piece, where I highlighted the importance of facilitating capital-efficient startups and smaller exits, including with small chunks of investment.

In working through the current landscape of our industry, a few trends become evident:

1. A large percentage of VCs are chasing Unicorns
2. Too much money chasing too few deals capable of delivering hyper growth bids up valuations
3. Many Death by Overfunding tragedies have emerged
4. Entrepreneurs are reacting, as Erin Griffith points out in her NY Times article: More Start-Ups Have an Unfamiliar Message for Venture Capitalists: Get Lost

My observation, having covered Bootstrapping for a dozen plus years, is that the industry doesn’t fully understand Bootstrapping.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping to Exit

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

Over the last decade and more, I’ve had the privilege of working with a large number of bootstrapped entrepreneurs. These include self-financed companies and also modestly capitalized startups that operate in a capital-efficient manner applying the principles of bootstrapping. [You can take our free Bootstrapping Course to review these.]

For our Seed Capital series of podcasts and blog interviews, I’ve interviewed hundreds of investors, especially micro-VCs and angels who are playing in the early stage game.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Art.com Co-founder on Bootstrapping First, Raising $30M Later

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

Art.com Co-founder Josh Chodniewicz bootstrapped for 10 years before raising a $30 million first round of funding. Read on to learn more about his journey.

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

Josh Chodniewicz: I was born in New Jersey. I am the oldest of seven kids. My parents had seven kids in nine years.

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From Hardcore Techie to Unicorn Entrepreneur: Dheeraj Pandey, Founder of Nutanix (Part 1)

Inspiring story of a passionate technical founder who has built one of the iconic fast growth Unicorns in the tech industry.

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: Solo Entrepreneur Bootstraps First, Raises Money Later in Utah

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

We’re big fans of solo entrepreneurs. GuideCX Founder CEO Peter Ord validated his business with real paying customers before he raised money; always the best strategy.

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?

Peter Ord: I grew up in San Diego, California. I’m one of five boys. My father was a homebuilder and my mother was a teacher. Our summer jobs involved framing homes for my father. Oddly enough, that’s where some of the ideas came for GuideCX. There is a certain order to an operation that needed to occur that I grew up seeing over and over again.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping Using Services from Helsinki, Finland

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

European companies often follow a methodical, deliberate approach to business building as opposed to mindlessly chasing venture capital. FA Solutions Managing Director Juha Lehtonen has used the principles of bootstrapping using services to build his venture from Finland.

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?

Juha Lehtonen: I’m from Finland. I was born and raised in the countryside about 100 kilometers north from Helsinki. I was born in a family where my father was an entrepreneur. He had set up a construction business with his brother. All my childhood, I saw my father working as an entrepreneur from 7AM to 10PM. As a child, I wasn’t really very handy. I’m not the one who was to follow my father. I was fairly good at school. I was into computers. That’s how I grew up.

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