The Story:
Learn from the successful entrepreneurial journey of Dhruv Mathur, Co-Founder of Little Black Book (LBB) about bootstrapping vs funding and the right way to find investors to grow your startup.
Minute 0:32
Dhruv discusses the basics of bootstrapping (the word colloquially means, ‘tying up your bootlaces’) and how he avoided high cash burn in the early days.
Minute 5:58
Dhruv shares his insights on funding – how to approach funding, how to use capital and the importance of funding for a startup.
DR Pro Tip: Start networking with potential investors early, like very early!
Minute 9:50
“The best conversations have to infect the person about the problem and about the size of the problem and not the solution you have” – Dhruv’s advice to newbie startup founders.
Dialogue Room questions discussed in the video:
- What was your initial bootstrapping strategy?
- Did you burn a lot of cash while starting out? How did you manage?
- When did you realise bootstrapping wasn’t enough and decided to approach funding?
- How did you approach funding?
- What advice would you like to give to someone who has just started and is unaware of funding and investments?
A brief on LBB:
What started as a Tumblr blog now has over 3.5 million monthly users. The five-year old platform caters to customers by closing the gap on discovery and transaction, says Suchita Salwan, the CEO and founder of LBB. Dhruv Mathur adds his expertise as the CTO and co-founder integrating technology with the existing LBB model.