The EJ MethodologyThe EJ MethodologyThe EJ MethodologyThe EJ Methodology

•Most businesses are too small for VCs

•Worth Building, though

•Especially if you own 100%

•To own 100% of a business, you cannot raise money

•Sramana Mitra

•Primary Goal: Inspiration & Demystification

•“Crafting a Business”

• vs

• “Being Lucky”

The EJ methodology is based on the assumption that it is better to bootstrap the early stage of a venture, and raise money only when you have a validated business, if at all

Validating the business idea is essential

EJ2 deals extensively with the methodology of validation

Investors never fund ideas that are not validated

Pitch at the roundtables AFTER doing some validation of your idea using the methodology in EJ2

Validation Methodology

RightNow: The Montana Mogul [EJ2] - $500m market cap in 2009

Great lesson on idea validation & bootstrapping the early stages to get to a big Series A valuation

Also Murli Thirumale (Ocarina) and Manoj Saxena (Webify)

•Do not spray and pray

• B:B PayCycle: SaaSing Back At Athe Economy [EJ3] – acquired by Intuit for $170m

• Great Segmentation and TAM analysis

• B:C The Find: Web 3.0 – Under Construction [EJ3]

• Segmentation

EJ3 Case Studies

Appendix of EJ3 – Clarify your story - http://www.sramanamitra.com/clarify-your-story-excerpt/

•Efficient Innovators solve problems, not invent solutions looking for problems.

•Venture Capital is not the only option.

• Other Useful Case Studies & Principles

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Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)4C = Content, Community,

Commerce in ContextP = PersonalizationVS = Vertical Search

Taking on Giants section of EJ1Applies to all web businesses that

have a specific context

EJ1: Web 3.0 Framework

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Bootstrapping to Billions - Finisar Case Study - EJ1 -Using services to fund product development

Free To Innovate - Creyptography Research Case Study - EJ4 - using services to fund IP development

Bootstrapping Using Services

Open Source Go-to-Market Strategies

• DimDim - EJ3

• SugarCRM - EJ4

• SpringSource - EJ4

• CollabNet – EJ4

•All Books on Amazon, Kindle, Smashwords

Entrepreneur Journeys (EJ1)

Bootstrapping, Weapon of Mass Reconstruction (EJ2)

Positioning, How To Test, Validate, And Bring Your Idea To Market (EJ3)

Innovation, Need Of The Hour (EJ4)

Vision India 2020

45 Billion dollar business ideas

Business Fiction set in 2020

A futuristic retrospective

http://www.sramanamitra.com/2010/03/19/vision-india-2020-internships/