Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bongo CEO Josh Kamrath (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: How far did you get? In terms of metrics, how long did it take you to reach your first million in revenue?

Josh Kamrath: It took a solid three years to get to the first million. As we were getting to around a million, we expanded our focus in terms of the business model. So that’s an important thing to mention.

Sramana Mitra: What year is this?

Josh Kamrath: In 2012, we got to a million dollars.

Sramana Mitra: You started in 2009. So 2009 to 2012 is the window that we’re talking about? 

Josh Kamrath: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: That’s after the financial crisis. It’s a market in recession.

Josh Kamrath: A little bit. Education is weird. It is insulated from a recession. If a recession takes place, more people actually go back to school. Now colleges are funded by tax dollars, there’s nervousness a lot of the times over the next year’s budget. The reality is people pay tuition and have a higher likelihood to go back to school when they don’t have a job.

Sramana Mitra: Talk about financing. Were you doing this bootstrapped? Was there any money involved in that early part? 

Josh Kamrath: Both early on and even today, we’ve been almost bootstrapped. We raised a little more than a million dollars originally in 2011. Then we’ve just been super capital-efficient for a long time. Since then, we didn’t have to raise money.

Sramana Mitra: So just $1 million in financing in the entire history of the company so far?

Josh Kamrath: Yes, it’s little more than a million. Then it got more complicated last summer when we bought out the founder. 

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about this million that you raised. When did you raise it? What were the metrics with which you went to raise that money? Whom did you raise that from?

Josh Kamrath: It was just friends and family. It was in 2011 that it was raised. All of it went to just financing development. Like I mentioned, the US employees weren’t really taking salaries. I was by commission only and living in my in-laws’ basement. I just lived really cheaply.

Sramana Mitra: Well that’s how great bootstrapped businesses are built. It was the founder and you. Then you had a bunch of Upwork people helping you out on a freelance basis. That’s the team, right? 

Josh Kamrath: That was the original team.

Sramana Mitra: How long did that configuration last? When did you start changing the configuration in terms of bringing on additional people?

Josh Kamrath: We started bringing more people in 2012. These people are from the US. We brought in people who would take charge in support and in business. We tried a few salespeople but they didn’t work out. If you’re talking journey, that might be a great lesson thread to pull on.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Capital Efficient Entrepreneurship: Bongo CEO Josh Kamrath
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