12 Udemy Courses on How To Build a Startup While Working Full Time

Most adult professionals have jobs, families, and other responsibilities. People working in the tech industry have big salaries to forego if they want to start a company.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Could you summarize what you learned? What were the wins and what were the mistakes?

Kish Vasnani: On the wins side, we figured out product-market fit. It reached a critical mass of people. As soon as people saw the product and imaging, they resonated with it. That is thanks to Vanessa’s background. That part was great. It was our first time going deep into the manufacturing process. That’s where we did have some slip-ups. Our samples looked great, but when it came to mass production, we had bags that were defective.

Entrepreneur Couple Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Business Using a Paycheck and Crowdfunding: Nomad Lane Co-Founders Kish Vasnani and Vanessa Jeswani (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Crowdfunding campaigns, in general, work well when you have an email list or a community to promote your campaign to. It sounds like you already had an email list. How large was that community that you had brought together?

Kish Vasnani: It was around 5,000.

Sramana Mitra: How much revenue had you brought in from the previous accessories business?

5 Udemy Courses on How to do a Startup as a Non-technical Founder

Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, intellectuals have had to ask themselves, ‘Does Capitalism Still Work?’ I have explored this question for several years now, beginning with a seminal column I wrote for Forbes: Capitalism’s Fundamental Flaw. Two particular problems stand out.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Tipser CEO Marcus Jacobsson (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: I’m just stunned at how poorly monetized some of these media companies are. They’re sitting on the gold, but they’re unable to do anything with the gold. 

Marcus Jacobsson: That’s our mission.

Sramana Mitra: Where do you see open opportunities in this space?

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Tipser CEO Marcus Jacobsson (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What are the numbers? Typically, affiliate fees tend to be 10% to 25%. And how do you split between the media company?

Marcus Jacobsson: Our average commission is more than double the average affiliate commissions. The reason for that is we move the power from the merchants to the media. It’s the media that decides which products to showcase. The traffic stays with the media company. That means we can negotiate higher commissions if you’re selected by the media companies. If you want that endorsement, you need to pay slightly higher commissions.

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Tipser CEO Marcus Jacobsson (Part 1)

Tipser is a Swedish company that is turning affiliate marketing on its head!

Super interesting conversation.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start by introducing our audience to yourself as well as Tipser. 

Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Jungle Scout CEO Greg Mercer (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: You mentioned that these Amazon brands rolling up are your customers. Can you talk about some of these companies that are coming together through these roll-ups? What kinds of brands have been rolled up? How many umbrella companies are there doing this?

Greg Mercer: It’s become prolific over the past couple of years. In the past week or so, we estimated that billions of dollars have been raised to purchase these digital native Amazon first brands. I would say that the majority of them are not focusing on a certain style of product but instead are focusing on the economics of the business. It involves what businesses are doing well, what their profit margin is, and things like that.