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Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DefinitiveDeals Founder Mattias Larson (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Were you working with an affiliate network?

Mattias Larson: Yes, I started with Commission Junction. Right now, we’re probably a member of most of the networks out there.

Sramana Mitra: I suppose there is a certain intelligence that you apply to selecting what you want to merchandise on your site. Did you have any algorithm or philosophy around that?

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Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: Axosoft CEO Hamid Shojaee (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: When you were going in to raise the second round of financing, what were you able to achieve at that time?

Hamid Shojaee: We had created four different products around this fingerprint recognition device. One of them was for picking up your son or daughter at a day care center so that no one else can pick them up unless they had your fingerprint. We had a registration system where you had to register as a parent to pick up your kid. We had a clock in and out system for employers who had hourly employees. No one can clock in and out for other people. We also had a rudimentary system for controlling membership for a >>>

Black Entrepreneur in North Carolina Says No Bias: Rod Brown, COO of OnceLogix (Part 3)

Sramana: How did you balance starting a company in your off hours as a collective team?

Rod Brown: We mapped out a plan. In the first month that we rolled out our product, we signed up 5 customers. We felt like that was a good start and we knew we could make money after that. We mapped out a plan to have each person quit their full-time jobs once we hit a certain revenue mark. Trinity was able to quit first, followed by Ty, and finally myself. >>>

Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DefinitiveDeals Founder Mattias Larson (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You used the Internet to find you and then draw traffic in and then act as an affiliate partner to these deals?

Mattias Larson: Exactly. I found all these good deals and different coupons. “Here’s the best price that you can get on this Dell computer, but hurry up it’s only good for three days.” Those are the type of things that I posted there. But again, you can have the greatest idea but if don’t have traffic on your site, nobody knows that it’s there. That’s when the advertising came in. I started bidding on specific keywords that I thought would convert well. I really mastered Google AdWords in the early days. In 2008, I decided to quit my day job and turn this into a full-time business.

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Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: Axosoft CEO Hamid Shojaee (Part 1)

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

Bootstrapping using a paycheck is a real trend. Here’s one more case study!

Sramana Mitra: Hamid, tell us a bit about yourself. Where were you born and raised and in what kind of background?

Hamid Shojaee: I was born and raised in Iran. I was 10 years old when we moved to the United States.

Sramana Mitra: What time frame was this?

Hamid Shojaee: I was born in 1973. I was there until about the end of 1983.

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Black Entrepreneur in North Carolina Says No Bias: Rod Brown, COO of OnceLogix (Part 2)

Sramana: Why did you give the advice to productize the software instead of selling it off?

Rod Brown: I felt that it could become a software solution that was used across the nation.

Sramana: When you made that statement what was your vision of what the product would become?

Rod Brown: The product was built for a very specific market so we knew who the customers were going to be. We were in North Carolina and we knew how many potential customers we could have in North Carolina, so we set that as our goal and initial vision. >>>

Bootstrapping with a Paycheck: DefinitiveDeals Founder Mattias Larson (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What happens after that?

Mattias Larson: Then I landed in Stanford, Connecticut. That’s where my US journey started. I still worked for that same Swedish software company. They are yet to open an office in the US. They needed someone with technical expertise in this particular product. I came in over to train. It was a very technical solution.

Sramana Mitra: How does the story arrive at the DefinitiveDeals story?

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Black Entrepreneur in North Carolina Says No Bias: Rod Brown, COO of OnceLogix (Part 1)

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

We constantly hear from pundits that specific demographic groups face bias in the industry. Rod Brown works with a team of black entrepreneurs in North Carolina, and has a refreshingly positive attitude with which they’re building OnceLogix. His simple message: ‘Solve problems.’

Sramana: Rob, tell us where you are from and what your background is. What is the backstory to your entrepreneurial journey?

Rod Brown: I am from a small town in North Carolina. I went to school at Winston-Salem State University. My background is in financial services. I was in banking for many years before I became an entrepreneur. I worked for a Fortune 500 bank and did Banking Operations for 10 years before I jumped the fence and started doing financial management. I became a licensed financial advisor for sales, stocks, and bonds. I was basically a money manager. >>>