Featured Videos

From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 2)

Sramana: What did you learn from watching eBay’s struggle with art auctions?

Alexander Zacke: In the mid-2000’s, it became clear that the peer-to-peer marketplace model, although extremely powerful and scalable, did not work beyond a certain price point. The fine art world will begin at $1,000 which was 20 times the price point of eBay.

>>>

Building Fat Startups: Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What happened next in your history?

Andres Rodriguez: After we sold Archivas, we had all the top venture capitalist wanting to fund the next project.

Sramana Mitra: I’m sure. What’s good with being an entrepreneur is, capital follows you.

Andres Rodriguez: Success breeds capital.

Sramana Mitra: However, let’s talk about the investment pieces that you explained to the investors? What year was this when you started on Nasuni?

>>>

From Berlin, Bringing Art Auctions Online: Auctionata CEO Alexander Zacke (Part 1)

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

Auctionata is a professional online auction house. We’re about to encounter the online version of Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Read on …

Sramana: Alex, let’s start at the beginning of your story. Where are you from and where were you raised? What are the roots of your entrepreneurial journey?

Alexander Zacke: I was born in Vienna in 1966. I grew up in a family of art dealers and collectors. The family business goes back four generations. I was raised among amazing art collections. I have known art from various cultures my entire life. >>>

Building Fat Startups: Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: What year did you start Archivas?

Andres Rodriguez: Towards the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002.

Sramana Mitra: Was it the same team that you had in Abuzz?

Andres Rodriguez: Some of the engineering team was the same, but a key ingredient was missing. This is happens often when you shift industries. With Archivas, I was moving from application layer of the stack down to the infrastructure layer of the stack. My team was exceptionally good at doing rapid amplification of distributed system layer. Now, we were going down to the storage layer, which requires a great deal of attention to quality and quality assurance.

>>>

Bootstrapping Eloqua, Crowdfunding Influitive: Lessons From Mark Organ’s Entrepreneurial Journey (Part 7)

Sramana: When did you start Influitive?

Mark Organ: I left Singapore in early 2010 and I started Influitive after I returned to Toronto. I was able to get a great team together. The goal was to help companies grow faster by leveraging their fans and advocates. We think this is going to be a huge new category in marketing software. Social media has made it easy to connect prospects with knowledgeable peers. We feel that the only way companies can be successful is to influence buyers before they talk to someone.

We did raise money earlier because I was able to leverage my reputation. We raised a couple hundred thousand dollars in seed money which I used to get the prototype out. We were able to get a few customers with that and then we did a $2.75 million round last year and have now raised just over $11 million. >>>

Building Fat Startups: Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What were the mechanics of Abuzz? Was it a venture-funded company?

Andres Rodriguez: Yes, it was a classic Series A venture funded company. It was funded by SoftBank, Brad Feld, Solstice Capital, and Flatiron Ventures, which is no longer around. I was very lucky to have good guys. They were especially good with young entrepreneurs. They knew how to work with teams that did not have a lot of experience. They coached young entrepreneurs through the process of building companies very early on.

It was also a great time to build a company. I think we are in a very similar time today where young people’s ideas can get a lot of support and a lot of money behind them to make those ideas happen.

>>>

Bootstrapping Eloqua, Crowdfunding Influitive: Lessons From Mark Organ’s Entrepreneurial Journey (Part 6)

Sramana: Can you tell me a bit about your decision to raise money?

Mark Organ: Once we knew the formula for a sales unit and the return it would provide, it was time to step on the gas and we needed money to do that. We knew that if we did not do that, then another firm would. There were some legal and tax problems for American VCs to invest in a Canadian company.

We received a cold call from JMI Equity who had a partner whose expertise was marketing software. JMI had to establish a subsidiary in Barbados in order to make the investment. We also had a very problematic angel pressing for preferential status. We ultimately raised $4.7 million on a $14.3 million valuation. We had $5 million trailing revenue, we were profitable, and we were growing over 100% a year.

Sramana: If you were doing that in Silicon Valley, the valuation would have been way higher at that time. >>>

Building Fat Startups: Nasuni CEO Andres Rodriguez (Part 1)

Andres Rodriguez is a rare Latin American entrepreneur in hard core tech. In this era of ‘lean startups’, Andres has built a couple of ‘fat ones’ and in this interview, we discuss what he has learnt, and what he advises other entrepreneurs wrestling with the need to raise money to fund ‘fat startup concepts’.

Sramana Mitra: Andres, where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What circumstances did you grow up in?

Andres Rodriguez: I was born in Venezuela, South America. I graduated from high school there and I came to the States to attend an engineering school.

>>>