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Bootstrap the First Venture, Raise Money for the Second: cVidya CEO Alon Aginsky (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You said you started the company while you were still running the other one in 2001.

Alon Aginsky: I finished all my responsibilities in the call accounting company in 2001. After the bubble burst, I started the cVidya journey. That was a different startup. We bootstrapped it in the beginning. We completed our institutional A round in 2004. From that point to today, we have completed four equity rounds of total $42 million. In 2010, we acquired a company in Israel called ECtel for $21 million in cash. The company raised $42 million but half of it went to acquiring another company. We grew the company on our own and with the help of the acquisition we managed to double the size of the company. Today, we are a leader in the analytics space in telecom. We employ close to 300 employees in 15 locations around the world and serve over 150 telecom operators in almost 70 countries.

Sramana Mitra: In that journey, what can you share as things that would help entrepreneurs learn from your experience? >>>

Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I imagine, given what you’re doing right now, you’re already substantially profitable.

Josh Levy: We run a profitable business. We try to invest every dollar back whether it’s additional hires, marketing, or content licensing. We still see so much opportunities in data and where the broader space can go.

Sramana Mitra: That’s actually an interesting point for businesses that are bootstrapped. If you look at your business metrics, how much profit are you generating that you then decide to funnel into growth? How much year-over-year growth are you able to accomplish? Whatever you feel comfortable sharing. >>>

Building a Marketing Software Company from Utah: Convirza CEO Jason Wells (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You left in 2005?

Jason Wells: Yes, I left in 2005. I was tapped by a recruiter from Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures wanted to start and build a mobile content business around the world. They’ve got every movie asset. They have licensing rights for games and content. We had a 60-person development team to create creating mobile games. This is probably in the heyday of mobile content and the early days of apps on phones. >>>

Bootstrap the First Venture, Raise Money for the Second: cVidya CEO Alon Aginsky (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Other than the $400,000 that you got from the first investor, did you raise more money subsequently?

Alon Aginsky: No.

Sramana Mitra: You basically customer-financed the company, right?

Alon Aginsky: Yes, it was completely bootstrapped.

Sramana Mitra: So you finished college and then went to work for this company full-time.

Alon Aginsky: Yes. There was a good run in the US and also internationally. >>>

Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Besides the $600,000 and the $200,000 that you raised, did you raise more money?

Josh Levy: We did. We did a Series B with another high net worth extended friends and family group for around $1.3 million in 2012.

Sramana Mitra: So you’ve raised over $2 million to build the business.

Josh Levy: Yes, over five years.

Sramana Mitra: This is primarily a friends and family/angels business that you have grown to about 100,000 subscribers. You’re basically looking to take it to the next level at this point, right?

Josh Levy: Yes. >>>

Building a Marketing Software Company from Utah: Convirza CEO Jason Wells (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What happens in 2000?

Jason Wells: I had spent a lot of time internationally while at A.T. Kearney. In January of 2000, I left A.T. Kearney to start my first entrepreneurial venture. The company was called Globient. This was at the peak of the dot-com era. There were many companies that were in mezzanine financing. Their business models were being copied overseas and they were concerned about that. People didn’t know how to deal with that.

Convirza was essentially building out hubs or landing pads for a lot of the companies that were expanding. These companies were typically in mezzanine financing and looking to IPO. We did a cash retainer plus equity in the companies and then we acquired URLs and did business development. As part of their IPO story, we would build financial strategy for them. That was really taking off until the NASDAQ crashed. I think that was in May of 2000. All the money dried up. I kept going on through the end of the year, but I had to fold that business. >>>

Bootstrap the First Venture, Raise Money for the Second: cVidya CEO Alon Aginsky (Part 2)

Alon Aginsky: Hotels made a lot of money from 800 number calls and calls made locally from the rooms. That was the second most important income for hotels, hospitals, and universities. I wondered if there’s something that I can do in New York. I grabbed a few of those cards with me and took a plane to New York. I didn’t have any idea about what to do but I had $400,000 and a few cards. >>>

Bootstrapping with Angel Money: Josh Levy, CEO of BeenVerified (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You started finding these use cases and segments as you launched in 2010. What did you learn about the business model and the pricing model? How did those decisions evolve and how did that turn into revenue?

Josh Levy: It’s a good question. Subscription models have been around forever, but they’ve also gotten much popular. We were on the earlier side, but probably still part of the trend of subscription models picking up. I would say, for a long time, we were committed to the subscription model because we wanted to stand out in the market in saying, “Maybe subscription isn’t for everybody. But for the people it is, we think you’re going to get more value.” >>>