Why raising money is not always the answer: advice from a bootstrapped CEO (with Ilya Brotzky, CEO at Vanhack)
My first interview with a bootstrapped founder Ilya Brotzky from Vanhack. We are chatting about how he avoided raising money, mistakes he made early on with not vesting equity, and general advice to entrepreneurs.
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Episode Description
“Don’t chase the investor, chase the customer. You’ll have a more compelling story to tell”.
Key talking points:
- Why entrepreneurs need to chase a business model and then investment, not the other way around
- How Vanhack started as a company before becoming a marketplace
- How Iliya changed his “be a nice guy” mentality
About Ilya
Ilya Brotzky is the CEO and Co-Founder of VanHack. He is building a company that promises the fastest way to hire tech talent. Today, employers can access a community of 200,000+ highly-qualified tech professionals from 100+ countries - the largest such community in the world!
He has several articles on Forbes, Betakit & The Globe & Mail, he’s very active on Linkedin, with a network of 32,500 followers and raised very little money, around 120k - Ilya Brotzky. Great to have you on - welcome!
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