A Conversation About Sexual Harassment with Janine Yancey, CEO of Emtrain (Part 1)

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Janine has built a $5M a year bootstrapped business in the realm of legal training for employment and workplace issues. A core part of her expertise is in sexual harassment and related concerns that are currently hot topics in the industry. This is a must-read interview for those following the discussion in the media.

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?

Janine Yancey: I’m from Los Angeles, but then I was educated in Berkeley and then at Hastings College of Law, which is in >>>

Bootstrapping with Sophisticated Strategy: Rob Douglas, CEO of BioConnect (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. When did you crack your first multi-million enterprise deal in this mode?

Rob Douglas: A couple of years ago. Now it’s a regular course for our company.

Sramana Mitra: Excellent. This strategy really worked out.

Rob Douglas: Yes, it has. It needs a lot of patience to get there. You really have to be willing to see the thing through over a multi-year period of time. The interesting thing is, it took us eight years to complete 30 integrations and form 30 partnership ecosystem. >>>

Bootstrapping with Sophisticated Strategy: Rob Douglas, CEO of BioConnect (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Talk about the customer acquisition strategy and the scaling of revenue.

Rob Douglas: Customer acquisition is a three-step process. Step one is, BioConnect needs to be integrated into target software platforms. Step two is, we use that partner’s ecosystem to plant the flags of BioConnect. If we become integrated into that software platform, that platform’s partners and customer base consume our technology. An end user will now start consuming BioConnect as part of their platform.

Many times, what happens is that an end user finds out about BioConnect and realizes that it’s an enterprise platform. Then >>>

Bootstrapping with Sophisticated Strategy: Rob Douglas, CEO of BioConnect (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Did you bootstrap this company? How did you build the product? How long did it take your to build the product?

Rob Douglas: We bootstrapped it. We incorporated and started in the basement. The first year was all spent in research. From there, we began the process of developing what our product would be and look for people in our ecosystem who could be the first early customers to test our concepts and ideas.

It took us two years to get to a point where we had a 0.5 version. I would also add that in that two years, we pivoted at least >>>

Bootstrapping with Sophisticated Strategy: Rob Douglas, CEO of BioConnect (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What was the premise of this company?

Rob Douglas: We were then, and still are, on the quest for rightful identity. We believe that the trillions of dollars of fraud that lives in our economic system has a direct connection to the fact that we don’t actually communicate with real people but rather with credentials.

Coming from the biometric industry, I could see an impending futurewhere there will be billions of biometric sensors in the market and the world can’t consume them. The biometric sensor is a very efficient way of confirming your >>>

Bootstrapping with Sophisticated Strategy: Rob Douglas, CEO of BioConnect (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In 2001, you’re done with Siebel Systems. What happens next?

Rob Douglas: My ultimate goal was to become a successful entrepreneur and CEO. It was now time to learn more general management skills. I joined a company called Pivotal, which was a mid-market CRM company based out of Vancouver. I was the EVP of Sales for North America. While I was doing that, I had now taken my first Board position in a company called MKS, based in Waterloo.

I was now learning what it was like to be an executive and ultimately govern the growth of tech companies. This was post the dot-com >>>

Bootstrapping with Sophisticated Strategy: Rob Douglas, CEO of BioConnect (Part 1)

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

Rob has built a thriving founder-financed business from Toronto using very sophisticated strategic maneuvering. I just loved discussing the strategic nuances of this business. You’ll learn a LOT from reading this 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?

Rob Douglas: I’m a Canadian. I was born just outside of Toronto. I have grown up in and around the city of Toronto. I’m >>>

Leveraging Domain Knowledge and Network: Ari Paparo, CEO of Beeswax (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What does an average deal like Foursquare amount to? Are we talking enterprise deals in the millions?

Ari Paparo: I don’t want to speak about Foursquare in particular. Our minimum deal size is $100,000 year and it goes up from there. We have customers in the high six figures.

Sramana Mitra: As you have penetrated the market, where have you seen the maximum traction in the last two years? >>>