Profiling the most capital-efficient entrepreneurs

My partner Javier Rojas has published another post in his 'Return leaders' series on SandHill.com, interviewing the founder of BlueLithium about how he built his company on only $11m of venture capital to an eventual exit of $300m.

I love this interview series -- especially in this recessionary environment -- because it is entirely focused on how to create equity value with a minimum of external capital.  Javier has tracked down the most successful bootstrapped entrepreneurs, and drilled them about how they kept their businesses capital-efficient, how they timed eventual venture financings, and how they maximised equity value at exit.  

This collection of interviews is gradually becoming a practitioner's guide to capital-efficient entrepreneurship:

• Kent Plunkett, Salary.com
• Ratmir Timashev, Aelita Software Corp.
• Jassi Chadha, CEO and Co-founder of marketRx
• Heidi Messer, Founder and Former President/COO, LinkShare
• Jon Craton, Founder, Cramer Systems
• Greg Gianforte, CEO, RightNow Technologies

So what's wrong with this picture?  Well, there is only one European entrepreneur so far (Jon Craton).  I know there are more.  

The usual suspects come to mind -- Bernard Liautaud of Business Objects, John O'Connell of Staffware, et al.  If you can think of other examples of 'return leaders' who built successful businesses on little capital, do let me know.  I'm sure I can lean on Javier to interview them ;-)

Comments

[Kolja]

How about gameforge and vente privee?

[maxbley]

Good companies Kolya, but not (yet) 'return leaders'...:-) Let's see if and when they realise equity value.