A Serial Entrepreneur’s Playbook: ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo (Part 5)

SM: In 2001 you were working with a handful of retailers, advising them on various channels. Did you have a product in place?

SW: From 2001 to 2003, the bulk of what we did was helping folks to sell on eBay. It was going well, but we saw some clouds on the horizon. One year eBay would love what we were doing and another year they would hate it. >>>

Catching Up On Readings: Distance Learning

From university level through elementary school, online education is enabling students to carve out their own paths. In this week’s interview, Caprice Young explains how. You can read all of this week’s posts by clicking on the full article. >>>

A Serial Entrepreneur’s Playbook: ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo (Part 4)

SM: When you realized that large enterprises were willing to sell on eBay, what impact did that have on your strategy?

SW: We decided to rethink our approach. We took a very small business application and stripped it down to the metal. We kept the architecture that interfaced with eBay that managed and scheduled auctions. We then built an enterprise software application on top of that architecture. >>>

Partner Events

Entrepreneur Commons, Miami  – April 12, 2010
Entrepreneur Commons, Chicago – April 15, 2010

Entrepreneur Commons, Miami  – April 12, 2010
Foley & Lardner LLP and Entrepreneur Commons are happy to announce the launch of a new Entrepreneur Commons chapter in Miami, FL on April 12, 2010.
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A Serial Entrepreneur’s Playbook: ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo (Part 3)

SM: How did you fund the AuctionRover.com? Did you bootstrap that as well?

SW: We funded ourselves for a long time and eventually raised venture capital to try to sustain marketing as well as to scale faster. >>>

1M/1M: Receivables Financing

My Forbes column today is Financial Instruments To End The Recession. It addresses two key issues that we have been discussing recently: working capital financing and receivables financing.

In this discussion, I invite comments from the receivables financing world on how you see the risks and returns of receivables financing. What checks and balances do/should you put in to prevent fraud, and an implosion like the mortgage industry.

I am also interested in hearing from entrepreneurs who have been successfully using receivables financing to bootstrap their companies.

As always, I will synthesize, and do a follow-up piece for Forbes once we’ve collected our thoughts and debated and discussed them here.

Forbes Column 2010: Financial Instruments To End The Recession

This week’s column, Financial Instruments To End The Recession, discusses two financial instruments that banks should offer entrepreneurs.

A Serial Entrepreneur’s Playbook: ChannelAdvisor CEO Scot Wingo (Part 2)

SM: Did you bootstrap Stingray Software?

SW: Yes we did. We eventually sold it for $12 million.

SM: That’s sizable. Tell me about the journey of building a $12 million company organically in three years.

SW: Stingray is when I officially stopped being an engineer and became a CEO. >>>