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The Story of a $9M Lifestyle Business: Kean Graham, CEO of MonetizeMore (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: When you double-click down on that goal and thought about what kind of a business would fit that model, talk to me about all the different ideas that went through your mind.

Kean Graham: A lot of ideas.

Sramana Mitra: That’s precisely what I want to do. What was the process of figuring out which one of those you wanted to execute on?

Kean Graham: I was looking at the world like an entrepreneur. I was looking for problems around me which are, in turn, opportunities. There are many things offered in South America that are not offered in North America. There’s also a lot of things offered in North America that aren’t being offered in South America. There are a lot of opportunities there. >>>

A Serial Entrepreneur’s Lessons Learned: .CLUB CEO Colin Campbell (Part 1)

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

Colin, in one of his ventures, worked 10 years, and made no money when the company was exited. Subsequently, his perspective has evolved, and in this interview, he offers lessons on what to watch out for.

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

Colin Campbell: I’m actually a farmer from Canada. It was very tough work. Even though I worked on a farm, I still lived in the suburbs of Toronto. I was able to get the best of both environments. I went to the University of Toronto and graduated from there. As soon as I graduated, I went right back to working in the farm for about four to five months. >>>

The Story of a $9M Lifestyle Business: Kean Graham, CEO of MonetizeMore (Part 1)

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

Kean wanted to be able to build a digital business that he could work on from anywhere in the world, a lifestyle business that fulfils a very specific desire. Read his fascinating story, as the business has now started to scale.

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?

Kean Graham: I was born in Alberta, Canada. My family moved to a small town called Golden, BC when I was eight years old. It’s in the Rocky Mountains of Canada and they started a bed and breakfast in the mountains. We actually lived for five years on solar power. I grew up appreciating having electricity and being conservative and sustainable. From there, I went to Victoria, BC which I now call home. >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: How did the revenue move from a million dollars in ’87. Where are you now?

Paula Tompkins: We have been through three major downturns. The first in the 1990’s where we had to reinvent ourselves. Then there was the 2001 dot-com collapse where one of my major clients came to me and said, “We need to reduce our spend by 33% in five days.” Literally, I had to lay off hundreds of employees. Then in 2006, three major clients of ours – General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler – got into major trouble. By the time the bankruptcies were done and the dust settled, we were pretty much starting over. I had reinvented the company three times over its history and we are now over $20 million in revenue.

Sramana Mitra: Is there anything else from your journey that you want to share? >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When you moved to create this platform, what year was it and what was the competitive landscape into which you were coming with this platform?

Paula Tompkins: It was non-existent at that point.

Sramana Mitra: What year was it?

Paula Tompkins: 1999. What you really have to understand is, we have always done the same thing. We’re an enabler. Our job is to help bring a buyer and a seller together through technology. What we’re about is helping a consumer and a business user go online and research. Most of the work we do is in conjunction with sales channels. This is  all about working in an industry where they have a direct sales force, where they have a distribution network, where >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was the sweet sauce in your digital marketing offering?

Paula Tompkins: I like to call it the next best thing to a sales call at a fraction of the cost. If you look at the shopping process for a car, as an example, you want to see how the vehicle looks, you want to read all the specs and features and you want to compare that vehicle to other vehicles. Then you want to find out where to purchase that vehicle, very much like what people do today.

What we did in that case is we replicated that process and put it online so you could see all the features of the vehicle and experience it. For example, one of the clever things we did is you could put your skis through the trunk into the front of the car and then you could place the people in the car. Then the dog would have to get in the car. When you put him in, he would bark. It was like a little game. That was to show the fact that even though it was a small car, it had lots of capacity and you could put a lot of suitcases in it.

We had all the competitive comparisons. We had the lease versus buy calculator. >>>

Connected Medical Devices from France: Visiomed CEO Olivier Hua (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about from the point of view of building this company. You said the company started in 2009?

Olivier Hua: The company started in 2007.

Sramana Mitra: At that point, the product was the thermometer?

Olivier Hua: Correct.

Sramana Mitra: How long did the company function in that one product mode and what revenue levels did it reach? >>>

Long Journey Over 20 Years: Paula Tompkins, CEO of ChannelNet (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What year is that?

Paula Tompkins: 1985.

Sramana Mitra: Tell us a bit about the idea and how you came up with it.

Paula Tompkins: As I mentioned, the idea was that personal computers were gaining popularity. In 1985, there were about 10 million personal computers. There was the Macintosh, which had just emerged on the market, and then there was the IBM PC. Most of the IBM PCs were used in the business environment and about 50% of IBM PCs had a color card that would allow the computer to display four colors. >>>