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HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Entrepreneur Case Studies
Serial Entrepreneurship in Ad and Content Networks: inPowered CEO Peyman Nilforoush (Part 1)
Peyman has done two startups in the ad network and content network field, and this discussion takes us through that journey.
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?
>>>Bootstrapping a Perishable Meat Business To Significant Scale: ButcherBox CEO Mike Salguero (Part 1)
This is a fascinating story of a subscription service for high-quality meat being delivered to consumer homes.
Sramana Mitra: Let’s go to the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?
>>>Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: How did you acquire this very fragmented customer base?
Stefan Batory: Initially, we weren’t been thinking about that because we were supposed to work with that partner from southeast Florida who was supposed to acquire clients for us.
>>>Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 4)
Sramana Mitra: I thought you were trying to reposition the taxi company to doing a marketplace. How did you get to the software house?
Stefan Batory: I did not reposition the taxi business. I just kept it growing. At the same time, I was also running a small division of the software development house, which was a spinoff from that original software development house.
>>>Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 3)
Stefan Batory: At the same time, I was preparing for a Marathon race on the Sands. It’s a marathon across the Sahara desert. You have to carry a backpack with all your food and supplies to survive in the desert.
I started having some aches and pains in my legs, so I had to see a physiotherapist. Being a father of two, I wanted to spend some time with my children after I got back home from work. I used to do my workouts at 9PM or 10PM.
>>>Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 2)
Stefan Batory: After 12 years of running that first company, I got a little bit tired of growing a company that was in the service business. To double the revenue, I had to double the headcount. When we got to over 200 engineers, I didn’t feel like I wanted to hire another 200 to double our revenue the next year and then 400 to double it the following year.
I started looking for a different business model that would help me to grow the topline without growing the team as much. At the end of 2011, I decided to launch the first taxi hailing app in Poland. We launched that in February 2012.
>>>Bootstrapping with Services from Poland to a US SaaS Company: Stefan Batory, CEO of Booksy (Part 1)
Stefan started a software development company in Poland with a few other partners. Today, he’s running a high-growth, VC-funded SaaS + marketplace business in the US.
Awesome journey!
>>>Bootstrapped Entrepreneurship from Estonia: Lauri Kinkar, CEO of Messente (Part 5)
Sramana Mitra: Estonia has made huge progress in building a startup ecosystem. Can you talk a little bit about what has enabled that? What are the highlights of the ecosystem?
Lauri Kinkar: We have to take a few steps back. Back when Estonia regained its independence in the early 90’s, it was a unique situation. It’s a very tiny country trying to figure out how it should evolve.
>>>