Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to $25 Million: Percona CEO Peter Zaitsev (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What did you start in London?

Peter Zaitsev: I started Percona as it is now. It was a different company with different ideas.

Sramana Mitra: When you founded Percona, what was the idea?

Building a Capital Efficient Startup from Nashville: David Stange, CEO of Beachy (Part 1)

As you know, I love doing stories on entrepreneurs from different parts of the world, especially from geographies that have insignificant presence on the entrepreneurship map of the world.

Here’s a wonderful story from Nashville, Tennessee.

Bootstrapping a Virtual Company to $25 Million: Percona CEO Peter Zaitsev (Part 1)

I am a huge fan of virtual companies, and here is one that has been built with excellent execution from London by a Russian entrepreneur.

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 Zaitsev: I was born in what was the Soviet Union. I studied Math and Computer Science in Moscow State University. I started my first startup company while studying.

Bootstrapping a Tech Company by an English Major: Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9 (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I’d like to cover this CEO transition, which is always a tricky thing to do. For founders to let go and bring on a new CEO is a tricky transition. How did you do it? What wisdom do you have to offer for people who are trying to do that?

Kevin Groome: Let go of the suspicion that you’re irrelevant. For so many years, I felt like Pica9 was my fourth child and the most troubling of them all. Letting go of that and letting the organization stand on its own two feet can’t happen if I’m constantly doubting itself. Trust is huge – the trust in the whole organization.

Bootstrapping a Tech Company by an English Major: Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9 (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What’s the next major inflection point?

Kevin Groome: The introduction of Campaign Drive. We kept on building the software and getting more of our legacy customers over to the SaaS platform, which was an enormous risk point. By 2014, we were able to say that we had 90% of our legacy customers on our new SaaS platform.

Sramana Mitra: When did that finish?

Bootstrapping a Tech Company by an English Major: Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9 (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How many clients did you have in 2007?

Kevin Groome: Brands under management were 40. Billing relationships were probably 15.

Sramana Mitra: What kind of revenue level were you at?

Kevin Groome: We were at around $1.6 million in subscription revenue. We used to call ourselves an ASP.

Bootstraps First to $5M ARR, Raises $10M Later: Toucan Toco CEO Charles Miglietti (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in your strategy?

Charles Miglietti: What we are building right now. We are building a series of ready-to-use applications that will be plugged into existing systems. As we provide the very top layer of the visualization, we can build business applications that rely on any existing ERP or any existing system.

In terms of strategy, we have a vertical approach to target specific businesses that use a specific system.

Bootstrapping a Tech Company by an English Major: Kevin Groome, Founder of Pica9 (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How big was that deal with Marriott?

Kevin Groome: At that time, not that big. It was less than $100,000 a year. They are now our largest client. They spent probably $30 million with us.

Sramana Mitra: $100,000 for a small company year-over-year is not a small amount of money.