Bootstrapping from Guwahati: Anjan Pathak, CTO and Co-Founder of Vantage Circle (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

I am always thrilled to do stories of pioneering entrepreneurs building technology startups in remote locations. Anjan brings us into the nascent scene in Guwahati, in the North-East Indian state of Assam.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s go back to the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised? What kind of background did you have?

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Here’s a synthesizing question. What can your technology do that an AI-based approach cannot do?

Josh Millet: In an objective and transparent way, our technology measures key competencies, abilities, and behavior traits that we know are predictive of job success and business outcomes.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: What is the customer acquisition strategy? 

Josh Millet: When we were bootstrapping, we built our business on the back of Google. A lot of customers came in through the web. We did spend quite a bit of money on Google with paid ads. Over time, we built a great content strategy.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You went after the startups because they were hiring a lot. Intuitively, it would strike me that the large enterprise market would be more conducive to hiring evaluation solutions. 

Josh Millet: Yes, we probably should have had you as an advisor back then. We would’ve figured that out quickly. When we looked at the market initially we thought that the enterprise market was pretty well-served.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s double-click down on the starting of Criteria. What did you start with? How was the journey? Who was involved? What was the bootstrapping process?

Josh Millet: When I was working at that other company, I started participating in interviews with applicants. We weren’t good at hiring sometimes. A lot of companies struggle with that.

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: Criteria CEO Josh Millet (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

Josh has bootstrapped Criteria to almost $5M in revenue before raising funding.

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

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: We did a case study on Modernizing Medicine. You may be familiar with this company. This person is an experienced entrepreneur who has done it before. Their product is also a health IT product.

They didn’t use an equity crowdfunding platform. They just did a very successful funding round with physicians and had their customer base invest in their company. 

A Case Study in Equity Crowdfunding: Cary Breese, CEO of NowRx (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Let’s talk about your financing strategy. How have you financed this venture? 

Cary Breese: We’ve been a little unique. To start, we raised a seed round of funding from family, friends, and advisors. We ended up raising $3 million that way over two years. From just a family and friends network, my co-founder and I raised $3 million in $25,000 increments. It took us to where we had substantial revenue and customer base.