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Concept-Financing $8.5 Million: Gaurav Rewari, CEO of Numerify (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You can’t have everything. You have to choose. What year does that bring us up to?

Gaurav Rewari: In early 2000, I decided to do another startup in the consumer space. It was a company called FirstRain, named after the Indian monsoon season. I have memories of staring out at torrential rain and the relief it brought to arid lands. The idea was to try and harvest the web for information that may be useful for some vertical domains. It was a vertical search play. Of course, 2000 turned out to be a completely different time. This was the early part of 2000 with respect to technology markets. I started with some colleague from MicroStrategy and some professors from Princeton and Yale but very quickly realized that we needed to go back to the drawing board and reinvent ourselves, which we did, as an enterprise focus play.

Sramana Mitra: I’m aware of that. We had Penny. She related that story on the repositioning.
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Bootstrapping in Minnesota: Praful Saklani, CEO of Pramata (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Where were you when you were doing this company?

Praful Saklani: I was back in Minnesota. We were based in the Twin Cities. Our customer base was all over the country and the world. The company that bought us was actually based out of Ireland.

Sramana Mitra: Before we go into the details of selling the company, how did you get the company off the ground? You were 25 years old and not very long out of school. What was the financing? How did you get this company going?

Praful Saklani: Much like yourself, I’ve always been a big fan of bootstrapping. That has always been the model that I followed in the businesses that I’ve been the founder in. We had a small consulting practice that had some very good clients in the Minnesota area. >>>

Bootstrapping to $55 Million from Rural Minnesota: Tom Fallenstein, CEO of Fun.com (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You joined the costume business in 2004?

Tom Fallenstein: Yes, I was the only one doing it full-time. It was only a seasonal business up until 2002 and then I built a website to see if I could make it a full-time job. I was doing extra orders basically through college out of my dorm room, which was just extra cash for going out. When I graduated, I wanted to do it full-time. In October, everything exploded.

Sramana Mitra: What happened that October? >>>

Concept-Financing $8.5 Million: Gaurav Rewari, CEO of Numerify (Part 1)

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

Gaurav has deep domain expertise in the BI space, something he has leveraged to concept-finance a new venture to the tune of $8.5 million. Read how he is building the company, especially how he has positioned the company. Fast growth businesses only happen if you can position them right to begin with.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you from? Where did you grow up? What’s the beginning of the story?

Gaurav Rewari: I was born in Bombay, India, as it was called then. I grew up and did my schooling in Bombay. I then moved to the US after high school. I was fortunate enough to earn a scholarship to MIT. I went there for undergraduate work and stayed on to do graduate work as well. I was there from ’80s to mid-’90s. After that, I joined a startup called MicroStrategy based out of Delaware. It was a company started by an MIT graduate senior to me. It had about 13 to 14 people. I was thinking of doing a Ph.D. so I interrupted that to join a startup just to get a feel for what it was like. I’d initially thought that I would do that for one year. That one year never ended. >>>

Bootstrapping in Minnesota: Praful Saklani, CEO of Pramata (Part 1)

Minnesota seems to be developing well as a hub for tech startups. With a strong culture of bootstrapping, we’re seeing a lot of entrepreneurs building high growth businesses.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your personal journey. Tell me a bit about where you were born and raised and in what kind of circumstances.

Praful Saklani: I was actually born in the United Kingdom. My family is from North India. When I was four years old, we moved from the UK to Minneapolis. Throughout that whole process of growing up in Minnesota, I also traveled back to India, at least, once every two years. We’d spend a lot of time with my family there. I would say that I actually grew up both in the US and India. Even when I visit India, I would actually spend time in villages and up in the mountain. It’s a nice broad perspective of a good mid-western upbringing and a good north Indian upbringing too. That’s a bit of a cultural context.

Sramana Mitra: I spoke to somebody else who’s from rural Minnesota who has built a $5 million company with no outside financing just before you. >>>

Bootstrapping to $55 Million from Rural Minnesota: Tom Fallenstein, CEO of Fun.com (Part 1)

Tom has built a kick-ass e-commerce company out of rural Minnesota that he hopes to build up into a billion dollar business.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised, in what kind of environment?

Tom Fallenstein: I was born in Minnesota in a small town about an hour and a half south of Minneapolis. I’ve lived here all my life. I grew up just outside of the city. I went to school in Mankato for Computer Science and Graphic Design. Our mom was a seamstress. We loved Halloween. We always had the best costumes when we were little. When we got older, all of our friends wanted to borrow those costumes, so my sister decided to rent them out. That’s how the business started. >>>

Making Mass Customization Work: Jodie Fox, CEO of Shoes of Prey (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: On your website, I cannot get the shape of the boots. I don’t have the flexibility to be able to change the shape of the boots. You have a certain structure to the boots that you’re offering. You offered customization on the heels, leather, and colors but in terms of the shape of the boot, I didn’t see that I have any option of changing that shape.

Jodie Fox: Currently, no. That’s something that we would love to get to in the future. It just depends on a number of things that we would need to align.

Sramana Mitra: Team-wise, what’s happening now? How much of the company is in Australia? How much of the company is in Hong Kong and US? What has been your evolution in terms of building the company and the organization?
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Raising Money From 75 Angels: Manmeet Singh, CEO of Dataguise (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Are you selling direct? Are you selling through the channel? How are you going to market?

Manmeet Singh: Since 2013, we have had a direct sale strategy. We have Compuware as a reseller. Our product is available to be downloaded from Hortonworks on Hadoop, which recently went public. People can download and play with the product, but obviously, it will be a direct strategy because Hortonworks doesn’t want to resell our product right now.

Sramana Mitra: So far, you’ve mostly sold direct? >>>