Bootstrapping to $33 Million: Freightwise CIO Richard Hoehn (Part 1)

Freightwise is No. 2 on the Inc. 5000 for 2018. Amazing bootstrapping story.

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?

Richard Hoehn: I grew up in Switzerland. I did an apprenticeship as a machinist – the tool and die maker. After three years, I decided I wanted to go back to school and learn more about computers and technology.

Building a Mission-Driven Company from Sweden: Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer acquisition, what is working for you?

Anders Ankarlid: We have a reward program. We have ambassadors that we don’t pay. If they like our products, they can get discounts. We are doing Google Ads and Facebook marketing. Facebook marketing has shifted a lot into being really competitive.

Building a Mission-Driven Company from Sweden: Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is your hottest selling product?

Anders Ankarlid: Every new product that we are launching goes up as the new blockbuster. We have an assortment of stone paper notebooks. It’s a replacement for pulp-based stationery products. You take leftovers from the construction industry. You cross the stones. You make it into pellets and then you press it into paper.

Building a Mission-Driven Company from Sweden: Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What was the next step? How did you get to this company?

Anders Ankarlid: I always had this sense that I will some day come back to e-commerce and bring all of the experience I have gained. Then in the summer of 2018, it was extremely hot in Europe.

Building a Mission-Driven Company from Sweden: Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What was the trajectory of that group of e-commerce sites? Did you raise money? Did you bootstrap?

Anders Ankarlid: This was very early on. This was pre-Facebook in Scandinavia. Most of the sales were related to price comparison apps.

Building a Mission-Driven Company from Sweden: Anders Ankarlid, CEO of A Good Company (Part 1)

Anders is passionate about climate change. His fifth venture is one that explores his passion for sustainability.

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?

Bridging Complex Technology To Market: Lior Gal, CEO of Excelero (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: You have done this strategy in a textbook case study way. How many verticals and how many use cases have you gone after? What was the sequence of how you layered these different use cases along each of those use cases?

Lior Gal: There is some strategy and tactical work. For us, the end goal was to build the product that scales to any scale. One day, it will be a service offering on all platforms.

Bridging Complex Technology To Market: Lior Gal, CEO of Excelero (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back one step. Winning big customers like PayPal, what was the pitch that you made to let you start working on their technology stack?

Lior Gal: It’s the same pitch, but the pitch isn’t the trick if you can call it a trick. The process is, you need to identify which customers are early adopters. You can google PayPal and see if they have any PRs with any companies.