Bootstrapping From a Small Town in Denmark to $12 Million: Sebastian Petersen, CEO of TrendHim (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: I’ll tell you one thing though. You made this comment that outsourcing is bullshit. That’s absolutely false. There are a lot of ways of succeeding. You have succeeded in one way. There are a lot of other people who have succeeded in other ways.

We have case studies of virtual companies with 140 people in different companies. What is wonderful is you have built a wonderful company in a very offbeat part of the world. It’s not Copenhagen. It’s a small city in Denmark. You’ve created jobs. You’ve created excitement. That’s really fantastic.

Taking a Capital Efficient Company Public and Beyond: Medidata CEO Tarek Sherif (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: I remember we talked about it a little bit the last time we spoke. So Veeva has its eyes obviously on the clinical data management space. They have one big customer this year. I think that’s their first big pharmaceutical customer. Can you analyze that deal for us?

Tarek Sherif: I can’t analyze it for you because it’s their customer. I can tell you that it wasn’t a competitive process that involved an RFP because we are aware of every RFP that comes to market.

Bootstrapping From a Small Town in Denmark to $12 Million: Sebastian Petersen, CEO of TrendHim (Part 4)

Sebastian Petersen: If you want to start an ecommerce company today, it’s very difficult to do it without a lot of funding and thinking big from the very beginning. Today, buying visitors and customers is four times the price it was 10 years ago. You have to think more creatively today.

Sramana Mitra: I’d say yes and no. The game has switched more to unique merchandise. All the generic stuff, you can buy on Amazon. You can’t really compete against Amazon.

Taking a Capital Efficient Company Public and Beyond: Medidata CEO Tarek Sherif (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: In 2009 when you went public, what was the market share situation vis a vis you versus FaceForward?

Tarek Sherif: They had a larger market share when we went public. They were larger, certainly, in terms of revenue and market share, but we were growing much faster.

Sramana Mitra: Were they public?

Tarek Sherif: They were public. Why would anybody in their right mind go public in 2009? We went public in June of 2009 where our second tech company went out the door. It was a terrible time. The worst market you had in a century short of a depression. Why would you go public?

Best of Bootstrapping: How SmartBuyGlasses CEO David Menning Bootstrapped to $50 Million

David has bootstrapped a global e-commerce venture from Hong Kong. Splendid execution!

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?

David Menning: I grew up in Sydney. I’ve been educated in Australia. In my later years, I studied at universities overseas both in Canada and Japan for a little while. It was this time when I was abroad spending time in different countries that I was exposed to different business models, cultures, and people.

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Bootstrapping From a Small Town in Denmark to $12 Million: Sebastian Petersen, CEO of TrendHim (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What country did you first go into outside Denmark?

Sebastian Petersen: Norway and Sweden. Then we started going south into Germany and France.

Sramana Mitra: Was there something different that Norway and Sweden wanted?

Sebastian Petersen: Only simple things. Once we started moving out of Scandinavia to Germany and France and especially Eastern Europe, we really had to start tweaking our websites to the local community.

Taking a Capital Efficient Company Public and Beyond: Medidata CEO Tarek Sherif (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: What other strategic moves did you make between the $10 million round and the IPO where you grew revenues tremendously? Was there anything you did strategically?

Tarek Sherif: Yes, I think there are a couple of things. Let me take you back one step. So, we had two mantras when we were building the company. From day one, we always had a very long term view. Some people say that but we really live that. We looked out 5 to 10 years. We made decisions with that in mind, which aligned very well with our customers who make 20 to 30 year bets on drugs.

Bootstrapping From a Small Town in Denmark to $12 Million: Sebastian Petersen, CEO of TrendHim (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Can you tell me how many years are we talking in this mode? When did you move out of your mom’s house to your own apartment?

Sebastian Petersen: We only did that for about six months.

Sramana Mitra: How much were you doing, revenue-wise, when you moved to the apartment?

Sebastian Petersen: I guess $10,000 a year.