Sramana Mitra: Okay, so we’re doing an Entrepreneur Journey story. I need a journey. So give me timelines. When did you do what and what led to what and so on. So, you were trying to do this business and your Alabama college education was from what year to what year? Seven years, you said.
Josh Jones: I was at the University of Alabama from 1998 until 2005.
>>>Josh is building a Data Science training company from Alabama. It’s a very interesting model, going deep into high school level skill development in what the market needs today.
Sramana Mitra: Hi, Josh. It’s great to have you. Let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised? What kind of background?
>>>Abhinav has built a $15M+ ARR business by bootstrapping using services. Of his three products, one is a GenerativeAI design tool. Read on for more nuance.
Sramana Mitra: All right, Abhinav, let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from, where were you born, raised, what kind of background?
>>>At 1Mby1M, one of the most popular courses these days is the Artificial Intelligence segment. These courses include case studies that involve discussions on opportunities and challenges in Generative AI domain.
>>>Sramana Mitra: What were the highlights of that journey? How long did you do it for? How big did it get and what happened to it?
Sean Minter: That company got to about $5 million in revenue. We actually sold it to a larger telecom entity called Birch Telecom.
>>>Sean has bootstrapped AmplifAI to $1M, and then raised over $15M in two rounds of financing. Read on to learn the nuances of his strategy and execution.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Is your whole team in Michigan? Are you doing this out of Michigan?
Ryan Rosett: We have three offices in the United States. Our Ops team is mostly in Southfield, Michigan including our Head of Strategies, our Chief Financial Officers, and CTO. Then, we have an office in New York city where our Head of Data Science works. Then, we have a bigger office out in Tempe, Arizona, where our Chief Credit Officer works and manages underwriting and the collection side of our business.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Now, just explain the core business model.
Ryan Rosett: We have three channels: our renewal department, wholesale channel, and the direct sales channel. We have risk-based pricing with a lot of automation. We have prequalification models. A quick no is fine too. We’re very much about the customer experience. Obviously a customer doesn’t want to hear that they’re rejected, but I think they’d rather hear that they’re rejected in one second than, wait four hours, two days, or a month to hear that.
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