From Developer to 2-Time Successful AI Entrepreneur with Exits: Behamics CEO Valon Xhafa (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How long did you work in Europe and when did you start coming into the US market?

Valon Xhafa: I worked in Europe for two years and then we started to gain a lot of traction. We suddenly found out that we were getting traction from US.

Sramana Mitra: How were you finding customers?

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping a Vertical CRM Product using Services

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

Cleverping CEO Haysam Ali has built a $10 million services business and alongside, he has bootstrapped a vertical CRM product for the telecom industry. Read on to understand the nuances.

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

Haysam Ali: I was born in Brazil. My entire family is from Lebanon. My dad was born and raised in Lebanon. He moved to Sao Paulo when he was middle-aged. My mother is Italian. My background is mixed. I went to college in Australia when I was 16. I went to business school there. I moved back to Brazil for college. I went to school for advertising in one of the major colleges around here.

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From Developer to 2-Time Successful AI Entrepreneur with Exits: Behamics CEO Valon Xhafa (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How did you decide who was going to be the CEO?

Valon Xhafa: It was a common agreement. We didn’t have a concrete discussion about who’s going to be the CEO. For us, the vision mattered more. This was a really important thing. I learnt from my friends that they have a lot of issues with their co-founders about this specific decision instead of focusing on building the MVP.

Having a co-founder with whom you have a common agreement and having open communication is really important. We have different perspectives on different things. My co-founder is more like going step by step and checking stuff. I’m a bit more into going faster and spending more money. We average out in the middle.

From Developer to 2-Time Successful AI Entrepreneur with Exits: Behamics CEO Valon Xhafa (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What did you do next?

Valon Xhafa: I wanted to start something else. I wanted to build something from scratch. I tried to use different matchmaking platforms for co-founders. I met my co-founder. We matched. I liked his profile. He was doing his Ph.D. in behavioral science. He was talking about how you can incentivize customers in online stores to make specific decisions.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapping Evenica by Piggybacking

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Evenica CEO Sadek Ali has built an e-commerce platform company for the mid-market within the Microsoft ecosystem. 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?

Sadek Ali: I was born in Canada. I grew up there. Most of my adult life has been spent here.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped and Later Raised Money from Oregon

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PayRange Founder Paresh Patel did a superb job of validating in a bootstrapped mode and then raising significant venture capital. However, he made some mistakes after the fund raise. Eventually, he course-corrected and has built a wonderful business without further infusion of capital. Excellent case study!

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?

Paresh Patel: I was born in Vancouver, Canada. I grew up there and moved to the United States when I was about 10 to Portland. I spent the rest of my life since then in the Pacific Northwest.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Solo Entrepreneur Bootstraps with a Paycheck to over $15M

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SoPost CEO Jonny Grubin started as a solo entrepreneur, bootstrapped with a paycheck, and has built a $15M+ revenue global business with a small amount of funding. Excellent story!

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

Jonny Grubin: I was born in London but moved to Newcastle when I was three. My dad is American and my mom is from the UK. I grew up in Newcastle and started on my entrepreneurial journey at a pretty young age. When I was studying for my high school exams, I kicked off and ran a range of entrepreneurial ventures of my own.

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558th 1Mby1M Entrepreneurship Podcast with Deepak Balakrishna, Adya (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I also want to comment on what you said about go-to-market strategy. Cybersecurity is incredibly crowded. If you think about a large enterprise buyer who is usually a CISO, they don’t really have the bandwidth to look up every little startup out there. They have close relationships with the top players. When it comes to small companies, you have to go to market through some other way to reach these buyers. That’s what we assessed.

It’s becoming more acute now. As a result, there has been a shift in the thinking of VCs who are investing in these early-stage cybersecurity companies. They are also thinking about operating with a very small amount of capital. At the point where you need to scale your sales, that’s where investors are seeking exits into strategic players.