Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What year did Bill start coding the product?

Mark Dorsey: That was in 2007. He started building Bonanza from the ground up. At that time, there were a lot of eBay alternatives. The opportunities were obvious. There were a lot of programs that allowed you to create an e-commerce marketplace by just filling out a form. These were website templates. He decided early on that he was going to build it from scratch.

Sramana Mitra: Was Etsy on your radar at that time? >>>

Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What did you do to wipe the initial money out? How did you use that money?

Sal Akbani: You have real estate expenses because you need a place to store cars. You had to have the money to market those cars.

Sramana Mitra: Were you buying cars? Were you actually holding on to inventory?

Sal Akbani: We were doing consignments.  >>>

Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bonanza Co-Founder Mark Dorsey (Part 1)

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

Bonanza has scaled to over $75 million in revenue with just $1 million in funding. It was bootstrapped for several years before a penny of external financing was raised. Amazingly crisp execution. A must-read story of how a two-sided marketplace was masterfully seeded and scaled.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Mark Dorsey: I am from Los Angeles, California. That’s where I was born. I was raised in Southern California. In hindsight, there >>>

Bootstrapping a Two-Sided Marketplace to $10M: Sal Akbani, CEO of Gateway Classic Cars (Part 1)

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

Sal has bootstrapped Gateway Classic Cars to over $10 million in revenue. Another great story of how a two-sided marketplace was masterfully seeded and scaled in a niche market.

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?

Sal Akbani: We have the same ancestry. My parents were from India. I was born in Pakistan. My mother is from Calcutta. My dad is from Bombay. >>>

Master Bootstrapper with a Billion Plus in Exits: Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi and Flock (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: You have, yourself, generated a huge amount of capital at this point through a couple of exits. You had an all-cash exit of $160 million plus a $900 million exit. That’s a lot of cash. You don’t really need to go anywhere for cash. You have plenty of cash. Culturally and strategically, in your subsequent businesses where you have all this cash sloshing around, are you still following the same kind of discipline of turning things profitable?

Bhavin Turakhia: Fundamentally, yes. The principles are the same. The only difference is we have the ability to take bigger bets and wait for longer gestation periods in exchange for growth. We haven’t compromised on fundamentals. I’ve always believed in the notion of focusing on value and not valuation. If you look at Flock today, more than 98% reviews are all four to five stars. >>>

Scaling a Fast Growth, Venture-Funded Company: Rafael Sweary, Co-Founder and President of WalkMe (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: What are you seeing now? Where to from here? You have raised almost $100 million worth of financing. You have very good metrics. You’re scaling nicely. Do you see an IPO soon?

Rafael Sweary: Not soon. I think an IPO is a very likely scenario, but the timing of an IPO is something that you need to carefully look at from what you disclose about your company, the cost of maintaining a public company, and timing in the market. It’s a very likely scenario. Right now, everything seems to indicate that a public exit for this company is going to be possible.

Sramana Mitra: I have one last question. In recent years, and especially during the time frame where you have >>>

Master Bootstrapper with a Billion Plus in Exits: Bhavin Turakhia, CEO of Directi and Flock (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Any other businesses that you want to talk about?

Bhavin Turakhia: After that, I started two more — Flock and Zeta. Flock is in the enterprise and team messaging space, and Zeta is in the payment space. I started Zeta with a co-founder in India, and the business is currently largely managed by him. My main attention is on Flock.

Sramana Mitra: What is the thesis of Flock?

Bhavin Turakhia: At a macro level, if you look at communication and collaboration between teams within organizations or teams who manage projects, a large chunk of that has only been email. Email as a tool for communication was invented 30 years ago and hasn’t changed much. Our communication needs, however, >>>

Scaling a Fast Growth, Venture-Funded Company: Rafael Sweary, Co-Founder and President of WalkMe (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: What kind of average deal sizes are you selling right now?

Rafael Sweary: I can’t disclose details, but it’s more than hundred dollars per month.

Sramana Mitra: That doesn’t say anything. What else do you want to say that is interesting?

Rafael Sweary: We’re trying to build a world where software will understand users and websites will understand users, instead of users trying to understand software and users trying to understand websites. The second word of wisdom to people who want to be entrepreneurs is, entrepreneurship is a roller coaster. That is the best description for how an entrepreneur’s life works. >>>