Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the customer acquisition strategy? 

Josh Millet: When we were bootstrapping, we built our business on the back of Google. A lot of customers came in through the web. We did spend quite a bit of money on Google with paid ads. Over time, we built a great content strategy.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You went after the startups because they were hiring a lot. Intuitively, it would strike me that the large enterprise market would be more conducive to hiring evaluation solutions. 

Josh Millet: Yes, we probably should have had you as an advisor back then. We would’ve figured that out quickly. When we looked at the market initially we thought that the enterprise market was pretty well-served.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down on the starting of Criteria. What did you start with? How was the journey? Who was involved? What was the bootstrapping process?

Josh Millet: When I was working at that other company, I started participating in interviews with applicants. We weren’t good at hiring sometimes. A lot of companies struggle with that.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 1)

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

Josh has bootstrapped Criteria to almost $5M in revenue before raising funding.

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

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: We did a case study on Modernizing Medicine. You may be familiar with this company. This person is an experienced entrepreneur who has done it before. Their product is also a health IT product.

They didn’t use an equity crowdfunding platform. They just did a very successful funding round with physicians and had their customer base invest in their company. 

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about your financing strategy. How have you financed this venture? 

Cary Breese: We’ve been a little unique. To start, we raised a seed round of funding from family, friends, and advisors. We ended up raising $3 million that way over two years. From just a family and friends network, my co-founder and I raised $3 million in $25,000 increments. It took us to where we had substantial revenue and customer base.

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Where were these customers coming from? What was the customer acquisition strategy?

Cary Breese: We knew that the point of sale or service for pharmacies is inside the doctor’s office. When I was in the doctor’s office, he was the one who decided that I was going to get a prescription. It wasn’t me or the consumer that decides if they are going to get the prescription.

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: When you started digging into this problem, what did you learn about the competitive landscape because, today, online pharmacies are present. 

Cary Breese: What struck me immediately was that the products themselves that pharmacies maintain in their inventory are fairly non-perishable commodity items.