Bootstrapping All The Way: Infinitely Virtual CEO Adam Stern (Part 1)

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

Adam has used some equipment financing, and plans to use more debt financing, to scale Infinitely Virtual. He has not used any venture capital or private equity, but has 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. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Utah: Hirevue CEO Mark Newman (Part 4)

Mark Newman: In 2009 to 2010, it was all about market validation around getting our first big customers in terms of big enterprise brands. These were brands like Red Bull, Hilton Worldwide. Second part was getting validation and integration with the big partners. We got partnerships with Taleo and Kenexa. Third was getting outside market validation. We won our first HR Product of the Year award at the HR Tech Show, which is a really big award for our industry. It helped build some credibility there. Things started taking off.

Sramana Mitra: How did the revenue ramp from 2009 onwards?

Mark Newman: For 2015, we’ll be $30 million plus.

Sramana Mitra: What other capital infusion have you done besides the $1 million round in 2009? >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 7)

Sunny Singh: Edifecs has become a business applications company providing business applications for these transformative things happening in healthcare. We have a lot of runway both in the US and international in servicing healthcare. From $100 million, our expectation is to become a $200 million company by 2017.

Going back to the point where I turned 50 last year, I said, “What do I want to do for my next 25 years even though I want to live more than that?” I want to do a couple of things. One is social enterprise. I created a social enterprise called Sabtera. The idea of Sabtera is to work in a local area in India in the state of Punjab where I live. Working with underprivileged kids and giving them a seven-day week nursing environment based on progressive education. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Utah: HireVue CEO Mark Newman (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: People were resonating with your value proposition.

Mark Newman: The product-market fit that we came across wasn’t the value proposition or the value creation that we delivered to our customers. It was the change management. Were people ready to change how they hired? It’s been done the same way since the invention of business. Then saying, “Now, do asynchronously. Trust that the system can ask the questions.” For HireVue, the journey has never been about the initial value proposition. That’s always made inherent sense to people. It’s been about the change management of refocusing how people build and coach their teams. When we do that, we see great results. Just like trying to help people quit smoking, the value is there and people know it. It’s the change and the drive that is the hard part.

Sramana Mitra: Anything that requires human behavior change is a very tough road. It’s an uphill task to make people change behavior. From 2004 to 2009, you invested $100,000. What was the ramp? >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Utah: HireVue CEO Mark Newman (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Was it a direct selling model? Were you selling directly to the hiring departments of these companies?

Mark Newman: Yes, that has always been the business model.

Sramana Mitra: What is the business model?

Mark Newman: At that point in time, we used to charge per interview. Four years ago after a lot of our hard costs were taken out of our cost model, we converted to a subscription model. Things like shipping webcams went away with the ubiquity of mobile phones. We were able to convert to a full subscription model.

Sramana Mitra: What’s in the product? On the surface, doing a webcam interview, you can do it on Skype. You can even do it on FaceTime. What’s special with HireVue? >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You were doing what kind of revenue level now?

Sunny Singh: In 2008, we were about $8 million to $10 million.

Sramana Mitra: In 2006, you’re back in a healthy state. What’s the next major development?

Sunny Singh: In 2001, when all this was going on, we came across this mandate from the government called HIPAA where all healthcare transactions had to comply with HIPAA standards. We entered healthcare but we didn’t have any idea about it or how it works. We just focused on taking on one customer at a time and making them successful. Before you know it, after five to seven years of good traction, healthcare companies started loving us. We had new approaches to solving problems. We were very customer-centric and our products were really good. From 2006 onwards, from being an EDI tools company we went on to become a products company because we started doing production transactions. We pivoted again to healthcare by supporting HIPAA. Then, we pivoted again by selling more of providing services starting 2007 to 2008. We started building out that competency. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Utah: HireVue CEO Mark Newman (Part 1)

True to our 1M/1M mantra, Mark bootstrapped HireVue to $1M in revenue before raising the first funding. Today, the company has raised a total of $92 million, and is going $30 million in revenue. Excellent case study to study!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your story. Tell us where you’re from, where you were born and raised, and in what kind of circumstances.

Mark Newman: I was born in Northern Canada, about 400 miles north of Toronto, in a small town called Timmons. I was a mining industry brat. My dad designed and built the copper smelters. He was a chemistry and metallurgy nut whose favorite thing was taking rocks and turning them into solid bars of something. Living up there, you were able to be blissfully unaware. You live in a small little town. You had chances to go to lakes and kick through trees.

Sramana Mitra: Where did you do your college? >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: While it wasn’t a small company, it wasn’t one of the major companies – SAP or Oracle.

Sunny Singh: That’s right.

Sramana Mitra: What were the contract sizes of the projects you were doing?

Sunny Singh: Under $2,000. They were all between $500 and $2,000. It depends how many seats they buy. If you bought more seats, you pay more.

Sramana Mitra: Early on, how did the revenue track? What was the revenue ramp like?

Sunny Singh: Around 1998 to 1999, we were a sub-$2 million company. We were doing a couple of projects. We were doing one contract where we were helping develop format for processes. >>>