Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s get back to the story. How much did your raise from Sequoia and when was that?

Zvi Guterman: In early 2008, we raised $5 million. This was our A round. Later on, we did another $10 million. Later we added another $10 million.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of customer acquisition and customer traction, when did you get the feeling that you had product-market fit and that you were able to accelerate the adoption of your technology? Where in this continuum did you feel that you’ve got it? >>>

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You basically built this on your father’s farm?

Jim Alvarez: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: You turned it into a theme park kind of thing?

Jim Alvarez: Yes. This is our 8th year and we are still growing strong. It’s a really big operation. I’ve got eight people in the parking lot, three police officers, and two paramedics every night. We have upwards of a hundred kids who come and act and scare people. We have professional makeup artists. I’ve been doing that every year since 2010. >>>

Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s also understand how you apply the learnings you had in your previous company when you started this one. What did you do differently? How did you navigate funding?

Zvi Guterman: It was clear to me that the first market was going to be the US market. As soon as possible, I moved to the US with my family. Immediately after I got funding from Sequoia, I was able to move to the area.

Sramana Mitra: How did you get funding from Sequoia Capital? >>>

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: It was not e-commerce. You were getting golf clubs made in China and wholesaling them to retailers.

Jim Alvarez: Yes, I did have an e-commerce site as well but majority of our business was from wholesaling it to big golf retailers.

Sramana Mitra: How long did that go on?

Jim Alvarez: I did that for three years. Natalie Gulbis, a famous golfer played with our product on her tour. She won a tournament only once >>>

Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: That’s part of an entrepreneur’s life – lots of no’s.

Zvi Guterman: Yes. That was my first startup out of Israel. We did a lot of mistakes. One of them was staying in Israel. At least, that was my belief. We were far away from the market. That was one challenge. The second one was that we were not focused enough. Those were our two biggest mistakes. Looking back, we were not focused enough. >>>

Bootstrapping to $10 Million: Gesture CEO Jim Alvarez (Part 1)

Jim has bootstrapped a $10M company by providing a software solution to the charity auction management problem. Interesting journey.

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?

Jim Alvarez: I was born and raised in the south side of Chicago. I went to college at the Indiana University.

Sramana Mitra: What did you study? >>>

Scaling to Profitability with $20 Million in Venture Capital: CloudShare CEO Zvi Guterman (Part 1)

Zvi has built a $25M a year in profitable revenue with $20M in venture capital from Sequoia and other investors.

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?

Zvi Guterman: I was born in a small village of Israel to a family of farmers. I feel fortunate that we are changing the world in a small way. We are able to influence people today in such an easy way. Sometimes when you have a long day with funding issues and customers, I reflect back and miss the simplicity of a farm life. >>>

Building a Venture-Scale MarTech Company in Silicon Valley: Chaitanya Chandrasekhar, CEO of QuanticMind (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What was your revenue in 2016 that you raised the $20 million against?

Chaitanya Chandrasekhar: Over $10 million in annual recurring.

Sramana Mitra: You mentioned something about Argentina. Why Argentina? How did Argentina come into the picture?

Chaitanya Chandrasekhar: There are two values that I think helped Quantic Mind. One is persistence. Failure is going to keep happening. The second and the most important one is people. The way we’ve invested with people is trying to go after people who >>>