Bootstrapping to $100 Million Plus: Ultra Mobile Chief Strategy Officer Rizwan Kassim (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: In 2006 you finally graduated. What happened after that?

Rizwan Kassim: I worked at a couple of companies. I did some technology consulting. I worked at a restaurant startup that was started by Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. I was the Director of Engineering there. I was there for a few years. Then the iPhone came out and redefined how people looked at touch screens. The business never recovered from that.

Restauranting is also a very difficult business. While I was working there, I met a man named David Glickman who is now >>>

Bootstrapping to $100 Million Plus: Ultra Mobile Chief Strategy Officer Rizwan Kassim (Part 1)

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

I have long believed that Go BIG or Go HOME is complete bullshit. I have seen entrepreneur after entrepreneur build a small but profitable, slower growth business as a first outing, followed by a much larger, higher growth business as a follow-on venture. Rizwan has done exactly that. Read on to learn more.

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?

Rizwan Kassim: My mom is from East Africa. My father was born in Karachi. They both came here in the 70’s. I was born in Simi Valley and lived there for about a decade and then moved up to Victor-ville. I went to UCLA. >>>

Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Where to from here? More of the same?

Sal Akbani: More of the same. We’re also incorporating a few other items out there into the product mix. As part of one of our themes, we have partnered with a very famous NASCAR personality Kenny Wallace. We are producing a mini-series on TV and negotiating with Fox Business News to do a half season series where we advise viewers on how to make classic and exotic cars part of their investment portfolio. There’s an investment component to some of these products, which have been inspired from the products on www.justcarchecks.co.uk

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. >>>

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Now we’re still in 2010. In the last six years, what has happened to the business? Where has the growth come from?

Mark Dorsey: In the past six years, we’ve attempted to rebrand ourselves into a fashion site. We kept Bonanza but we also created a second site for handbags exclusively. What we learned is that the fashion industry is a very difficult industry to succeed in. The people who are currently competing in that space have very deep pockets. That was one project that we tried and failed in. That didn’t work out well. We upped our focus into everything but the ordinary and what we were really good at. We continued to scale our business. >>>

Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Why Kentucky?

Sal Akbani: Because it was closer and safer, and I only had so much money to spare.

Sramana Mitra: How did that pan out?

Sal Akbani: Really well. It’s one of our best-performing showrooms for the last four years. >>>

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How did revenues scale? How long did it take your to hit $1 million in revenue and how did that ramp?

Mark Dorsey: I would really have to go back to the archives to check. You would think that that would be a major milestone that would be layered into my mind. I would say that as far as revenue goes, I would think that we would have hit $1 million within the first year.

Sramana Mitra: $1 million not in gross merchandise value. I’m talking about revenue. >>>

Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Would you say, looking back, that was not the right market to go into?

Sal Akbani: It was actually a good market. We just didn’t know what the heck we were doing.

Sramana Mitra: What do you think, looking back, did you not do or were not doing right?

Sal Akbani: Managing. We were poor managers.

Sramana Mitra: Poor people managers or poor marketing managers? >>>

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Help me understand the timeline now. When did you create this member program so you could keep the servers going? What year did you switch to being able to charge final value fee? What year did the membership program really start generating significant revenues?

Mark Dorsey: We launched the beta in June of 2008. The article came out in September of 2008. The membership program to buy more servers was launched in December. We started to realize significant amount of revenues a week after we started the program. To us, being able to buy another server was significant. That was significant revenue to us. >>>