(public).sospep.subjects ~ view article ~ no-venture-capital-needed-or-wanted

<h1 style="text-align: center;">No venture capital needed or wanted</h1>
<h2>[WHAT]</h2>
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<li>] by __ @ nytimes.com&nbsp;-&nbsp;the story of how Saatva founder (Rudzin)&nbsp;built his online mattress business without any&nbsp;VC backing</li>
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<h2>[WHY]</h2>
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<li>]&nbsp;</li>
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<h2>[WHERE]</h2>
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<li><strong>] READ THE FULL ARTICLE</strong></li>
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<li>]&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/business/smallbusiness/no-venture-capital-needed-or-wanted.html?src=me&amp;_r=0" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/business/smallbusiness/no-venture-capital-needed-or-wanted.html?src=me&amp;_r=0</a></li>
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<h2>[WHEN]</h2>
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<li>] 2016-06-02</li>
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<h2>[EXAMPLE]</h2>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Started career with another mattress mfg, worked his way up to exec suite, equity position. sold out a left</p>
<p>wrote a business plan in 2007, wanted to do an ecommerce company. Started with 350K of HOM</p>
<p>Mr. Rudzin&rsquo;s vision was to sell American-made, high quality, coil-based mattresses online at a fraction of the price retailers charged for store-based brands. He added</p>
<p>service to the equation by having them hand-delivered and set up in customers&rsquo; home. Saatva, which is Sanskrit for &ldquo;truth,&rdquo; turned a profit after its first three</p>
<p>months in business in 2010, he said.</p>
<p>It worked. &ldquo;We were the first ones out there,&rdquo; he said.The company said that sales, which totaled $2 million in its first full year in 2011, surged to $76 million in</p>
<p>2015. Mr. Rudzin is projecting sales of $180 million this year and at least $275 million in 2018.</p>
<p>Saatva&rsquo;s financing route stands in contrast from its biggest online competitor, Casper. That company went the more typical start-up route, with backing from prominent</p>
<p>venture capitalists and even actors, such as Leonardo DiCaprio.</p>
<p>Those who buck the odds by &ldquo;bootstrapping&rdquo; their own enterprises are rare, experts say.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a huge anomaly,&rdquo; said Mark Walsh, head of innovation and investment at the Small Business Administration. He estimated that as few as one in 50 brick-and-mortar</p>
<p>companies and one in 10 online companies could build their businesses into $50 million or $100 million enterprises on their own.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>But taking venture capital can be risky. In their haste to get financing, start-up founders often fail to read the fine print and later discover that they have signed</p>
<p>away huge shares of the profits. In some cases, founders may be removed by the board of their own companies by the time the businesses are rapidly growing or plan to</p>
<p>go public. For these reasons, some founders opt to take debt capital from banks and investors instead of giving away equity.</p>
<p>Spokeo, an online people search engine, has been able to generate tens of millions in sales without venture backing.</p>
<p>Dana Ehrlich also self-financed his business school idea into a multimillion-dollar company. In 2004, Mr. Ehrlich came up with the idea for a grass-fed, organic beef</p>
<p>importing business, Verde Farms, while visiting the grasslands of Argentina.The company, which is based in Woburn, Mass., said it sold 10.1 million pounds of grass-fed</p>
<p>beef in 2015, up from 240,000 pounds in 2008. Sales, which totaled $665,000 in 2008, surged to $7 million in 2009 and more than $50 million in 2015.</p>
<h2>[HOW-TO]</h2>
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<li>]</li>
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<h2>[REFERENCE]</h2>
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<li>] tb] <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/business/smallbusiness/no-venture-capital-needed-or-wanted.html?src=me&amp;_r=0" target="_blank">No Venture Capital Needed, or Wanted</a><span class="sitebit comhead"> (nytimes.com) </span>, SRC=hn(125)/<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824378" target="_blank">comments</a>(122)&nbsp;</li>
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<h1 style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;</h1>

~ view article ~ Chapter] ch-999-index FROM [ Book] startup-guide IN [ libraries] business