The Startup Velocity Question: What Hinders Acceleration in VC Funded Companies?

I have been running 1Mby1M since 2010. I find myself saying to entrepreneurs ad nauseam that VCs want to invest in startups that can go from zero to $100 million in revenue in 5 to 7 years.

Startups that do not have what it takes to achieve velocity should not be venture funded.

Experienced VCs, over time, have developed heuristics to gauge what constitutes a high growth venture investment thesis. 

1Mby1M Udemy Courses with Sramana Mitra: Bootstrapping

Over the course of two years, we have released over 70 courses on Udemy with the aim to democratize entrepreneurship education at scale globally. This series of posts aims to help you find the one you need easily and provide you with discount coupons.

Bootstrapping From Germany: Cleverbridge CEO Christian Blume (Part 1)

We’re always impressed by entrepreneurs who manage to build sizeable companies without outside capital. Read how Cleverbridge has maneuvered to $40 million in revenue and doesn’t want to deal with venture capital and private equity.

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

Christian Blume: I was born in Cologne, Germany. I moved over to the US when I was seven years old. I stayed for two years in Detroit. Then, I moved back to Germany again for a couple of years. When I was 15, I moved to London and did my International Baccalaureate over there. Then I moved back to Germany again and did my apprenticeship as a car mechanic. I then went to study Economics and went to an asset management company based out of Frankfurt, which was addressing high net worth individuals who needed investment opportunities. >>>

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Long Journey To Realize a Vision: Limeade CEO Henry Albrecht (Part 1)

Entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint, usually! Persistence pays, as Henry’s story beautifully illustrates!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your story. Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of circumstances? What is the backstory to the Limeade story?

Henry Albrecht: I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. I’m the youngest of four boys. I think that probably says a lot about my personality, competitiveness, and desire to be heard. I had two wonderful parents who embodied the Midwestern work ethic. My dad was raised on a farm in Iowa. He was the man of the family at age 10 when his father passed away. He was driving a tractor before he could reach the pedals. He brought that into the way that we were raised, which was to work hard and be successful. As the youngest, I was always trying to beat my older brothers even though they beat me a lot more often than I beat them. >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services: Evariant CEO Bill Moschella (Part 1)

Yet another case study of a services company successfully bootstrapping a product, then raising Venture Capital!

Sramana Mitra: Let’s begin at the beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What’s the back story of your entrepreneurial story?

Bill Moschella: I was born and raised in Connecticut. I attended college at Berklee and eventually got my degree. What I was passionate about all of my life was music. I went to music school and graduated with a music degree. I left college playing music in a band and opened up a recording studio. I never really had a job. I was always playing music. I was running bands. I found that I had a passion for the engineering side of music so I opened up a recording studio. I took all the money that I saved up from gigs. >>>

Bootstrapping a Billion Dollar Unicorn with Services from Utah: Dave Elkington, CEO of InsideSales.com (Part 1)

The tried and true 1M/1M theme of Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later rings through Dave Elkington’s story. He used services to bootstrap a Unicorn that has since raised close to $140 million in VC funding. Revenue has scaled 100% year on year the last few years.

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

Dave Elkington: I grew up in Utah. I went to school here. My parents are both school teachers and worked for the state and federal government. It was a little bit atypical. My dad was a rancher growing up in Idaho. My mom is from Canada. When people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell them I wanted to be a millionaire. They would ask why. I’d be like, “Not for the money, but purely for the sake of accomplishment of being able to do that.” I went to school locally. My education is a little bit eclectic. I have an undergraduate degree in Philosophy. I also have minors in Hebrew, Japanese History, and Business. I also studied, for about a year, in Israel. I decided I wanted to go get some >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services From Atlanta: PMG Founders Joe LeCompte and Robert Castles (Part 1)

Adding to our roster of Bootstrapping Using Services case studies, here’s PMG from Atlanta.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Tell us a bit about where you come from, where you were born and raised, and in what kind of background.

Robert Castles: I was born in Columbia, South Carolina. I spent the first half of my life there through to college. I have always been interested in technology as early as I can remember. When I was 11 years old, I begged my father for a Radio Shack Color Computer so that I could take it home and learn how to program. This is while all my friends were looking for baseball mitts, which I also like. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for that computer, which I got.

My dad then helped me get a job at 15 to write software for a small insurance company. I helped them out. They had a bunch of bad data and my job was to fix their data. I enjoyed that very much. It was a great opportunity. That set my life path moving forward. >>>

Bootstrapping Using Services from London: Conversocial CEO Joshua March (Part 1)

Josh March first built a digital marketing agency around social media before identifying the product opportunity for Conversocial.

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

Joshua March: I grew up in a relatively small town in England, a few hours outside of London. It’s called Malvern, Worcestershire. It’s famous for classical music composer Elgar. It has beautiful hills and countryside. It’s a lovely place to grow up but not completely exciting from a business perspective or the perspective of a 16-year-old.

I studied an undergrad law degree at college. I really wanted to be a barrister, which is a type of lawyer in England. That really attracted me. My family were lawyers and I was very interested in it. I didn’t really know anything particular about business. Entrepreneurship wasn’t part of my experience growing up. I went to college at Durham University. I was thinking I was on a pretty clear career path. >>>

Self-Financing an Artificial Intelligence Software Company: John Rauscher, CEO of Yseop (Part 1)

John has self-financed and scaled an interesting AI software company built on French technology, and would like to take it public. Very impressive execution!

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

John Rauscher: I was born and raised in France. I did a few jobs as a student. Then, I became a Mathematics teacher. It was important for me to learn how to set goals and understand how language is important for human beings. That was the first step. I came to the US to study English and Marketing at Berkeley. I learned so much in my experience at California that I promised myself to come back and live in the US, and start my company as an entrepreneur. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money from Kleiner Perkins Later: William King, CEO of Zephyr Health (Part 1)

Continuing on our theme of ‘Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later’, here’s William King’s story of building a robust company in the healthcare industry, now funded by Kleiner Perkins.

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 circumstances?

William King: I was born in Princeton, New Jersey. I lived in Princeton until I was 18. I’m the oldest of six children. That’s a little bit unique in that we had a lot of action in the house. The age span was actually a difference of 10 years, which was pretty interesting and pretty heroic, now that I’m a parent myself. As a child, part of my experience in growing up was leading my siblings and helping them to participate. Kids look up to their older brothers and sisters. A lot of what was instilled in me at a very young age is this notion of making good choices, collaboration, and the idea that people are paying attention to the things that you’re doing. >>>

Building a Cool Technology Company from Chicago: Narrative Science CEO Stuart Frankel (Part 1)

Some of what you’ll read in this interview will seem like science fiction. But please read on!

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

Stuart Frankel: I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was the middle kid with a sister on each side. I went to public high schools and ultimately to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, which is about an hour from Cincinnati. I started as an Economics major but ended up being an accounting major. Then, I moved to Chicago and became a CPA and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers for the first few years of my career.

Sramana Mitra: In terms of chronology, what years are we talking?
>>>

Unicorn in the Making: Avi Steinlauf, CEO of Edmunds.com (Part 1)

As you may know, we just launched a book called Billion Dollar Companies profiling the journeys of entrepreneurs building massive businesses. Edmunds.com may just be another unicorn.

Sramana Mitra: Where does your journey begin? Where are you from? Where were you raised and in what kind of circumstances?

Avi Steinlauf: Originally, I was born in London, England. For those folks from the UK or familiar with the UK, I’m a cockney by right given the fact that I was born within the sound of the Bow Bells, even though the accent that you hear is nothing like an English accent. I really grew up here in Southern California and spent most of my schooling here in the United States. >>>