Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, Build an EdTech Unicorn from Canada: John Baker, CEO of D2L (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In the very beginning, when you were going door to door asking people to sign up, what were you charging?

John Baker: In the early days, I built a model that was based on cost per student. The faculty members that I reached out to didn’t have the budget for this. I said, “Don’t pay me. I will charge the students just like they would pay for a textbook in the bookstore.”

Capital Efficient Startup, Venture-Scale Growth: ShipMonk CEO Jan Bednar (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Did you choose the first few customers by some threshold? Were they doing a certain amount of business already?

Jan Bednar: It was almost the opposite. They were companies that nobody wanted to do business with. A lot of the fulfillment companies in 2015 didn’t want to work with small startups because they couldn’t support them.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later, Build an EdTech Unicorn from Canada: John Baker, CEO of D2L (Part 1)

This is a terrific story of bootstrapped entrepreneurship in EdTech. The company also has a great PaaS strategy.

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

Capital Efficient Startup, Venture-Scale Growth: ShipMonk CEO Jan Bednar (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: You had a bit of cash that you could start ShipMonk with. You didn’t need to look outside for seed capital. 

Jan Bednar: Exactly. I already had one year for free on the warehouse. Everything else was set up within the warehouse. I was doing a lot of it myself along with my girlfriend. Other than that, very minimal capital investment.

Capital Efficient Startup, Venture-Scale Growth: ShipMonk CEO Jan Bednar (Part 1)

Jan has built a tremendous company with very limited capital infusion. Love the strategy.

Sramana Mitra: Where are you from? Where were you born, raised and in what kind of family background? 

Entrepreneurship in Heavy-Duty Technology: Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: You’re positioned as a middleware? 

Yuval Rooz: Exactly. That plays very well in the market. 

Sramana Mitra: You did this repositioning in 2018? 

Yuval Rooz: Yes. 

Entrepreneurship in Heavy-Duty Technology: Digital Asset CEO Yuval Rooz (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: At this point, did you have outside financing? What is happening on the financing side?

Yuval Rooz: We only raised funding from some of the early investors and friends and family. 

Sramana Mitra: How much money was in the company?

Yuval Rooz: I think in the early days we brought in $2 million to $3 million.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later from Houston: Onit CEO Eric Elfman (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Was it an all cash acquisition, cash in stock, or pure stock?

Eric Elfman: I’d like to think that we did what K1 did for us. It was a mix of cash and stock. I needed their founders on board. 

Sramana Mitra: What is COVID doing to you?