Bootstrap Using Services to Exit Case Study | Sramana Mitra

The 1Mby1M Methodology is based on case studies. In each course, Sramana Mitra shares the tribal knowledge of tech entrepreneurs by giving students the rare seat at the table with the entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders who provide the most instructive perspectives on how to build a thriving business. Through these conversations, students gain access to case studies exploring the alleys of entrepreneurship. Sramana’s synthesis of key learnings and incisive analysis add great depth to each discussion.

This course is for IT and IT-enabled businesses wanting to understand how to get early clients by providing services, as well as existing IT-service companies looking to transition into product businesses.

Why is this set of skills so important?

Raising funding for startups in Silicon Valley is a low-probability game. Fewer than 1% who try actually succeed.

Outside some of the global startup hubs, the startup ecosystems are mostly immature, and the probability gets even lower.

Seed investors are mostly operating as growth investors, expecting that the entrepreneur will somehow manage to bridge the gap and bring a concept to realization. In fact, what these investors really want is to invest in businesses that have traction, not just validation.

As an entrepreneur, how do you go from concept to traction? How do you bridge the seed capital gap? What do you do if you are full of dreams but stuck in the gap between concept and seed?

Offering a consulting service is one of the best ways to bootstrap your way to early revenue. You could sell your services to a prospective customer and be paid while validating your business assumptions. This will help in two ways: you get to know your clients better and you validate your assumptions.

If you take this course, you’ll see how a successful entrepreneur has done just that.

Let’s get started!