1Mby1M Entrepreneur Bootstrapping an AI Deep Learning Venture to over $5M ARR: Bharath Gaddam, CEO of Data Poem (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: One of the important points of bootstrapping is you can’t do a lot of stuff for free. You have to charge.

1Mby1M Entrepreneur Bootstrapping an AI Deep Learning Venture to over $5M ARR: Bharath Gaddam, CEO of Data Poem (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What was in your MVP? What did you put in the MVP that could take on conversations like this and deliver something meaningful?

1Mby1M Entrepreneur Bootstrapping an AI Deep Learning Venture to over $5M ARR: Bharath Gaddam, CEO of Data Poem (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I remember some of the work we did on the positioning. Summarize the process of how you’ve got to product-market fit.

1Mby1M Entrepreneur Bootstrapping an AI Deep Learning Venture to over $5M ARR: Bharath Gaddam, CEO of Data Poem (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Did you try it inside of Omnicom?

1Mby1M Entrepreneur Bootstrapping an AI Deep Learning Venture to over $5M ARR: Bharath Gaddam, CEO of Data Poem (Part 1)

It is always thrilling for me to listen to 1Mby1M entrepreneurs achieving great things. This interview capture’s Bharath’s 6-year journey of bootstrapping to over $5M ARR. At this point, I am fairly confident that Data Poem can blitzscale to become a legitimate Unicorn. Not fluff, not fumes, clear, concrete ROI-driven revenue growth that is set up for repeatability and velocity. 

This is a text book case study of the 1Mby1M Bootstrap first, raise money to Blitzscale later philosophy. I have no doubt that VCs are going to salivate to get into this rocket.

Building a Legitimate, Profitable FinTech Unicorn Using AI: Cynthia Chen, Founder of Kikoff (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. Where are you now in terms of metrics or objectives? Where are you and where are you going from here?

Building a Legitimate, Profitable FinTech Unicorn Using AI: Cynthia Chen, Founder of Kikoff (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Okay. Now, on this timeline, we are in 2022. This is also when AI is starting to hit the popular consciousness and the venture capital industry in a big way. What impact did that have on your product strategy, go-to-market strategy, et cetera? So, tell me more about what’s your AI strategy and how are you playing this game?

Building a Legitimate, Profitable FinTech Unicorn Using AI: Cynthia Chen, Founder of Kikoff (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: How much did you raise in your first round?

Cynthia Chen: First round was $2.5 million.

Sramana Mitra: What milestone did that get you to?

Cynthia Chen: It got me to tens of thousands of active users.