Aibek Esengulov, Co-Founder of MakeUseOf.com, Shares His Startup Story and Tells How Persistence Helped Him Succeed

Aibek Esengulov is the co-founder of MakeUseOf.com – one of the best sources we have on the web, for reliable information about useful tools, and applications. Today, with about 5.5 million unique visits per month, MakeUseOf.com is among the coolest technology blogs on the Internet. Aibek, who presently resides in United Kingdom, got his Bachelors in Computational Science from Germany and decided to launch his own company. However, his first project was a complete failure; but that did not stop him from pursuing his entrepreneurial dream and he started working on MakeUseOf.com. But just starting did not bring him success – he had to stick to his guns for nearly 2 long years before earning anything out of it.

MakeUseOf.com, since then, has been featured and recommended by a lot of mainstream websites and publications including Fast Company, Washington Post and PC Magazine – thanks to Aibek’s, his co-founder’s and his team’s consistent efforts.

In this transcribed version of the audio interview, Aibek shares his startup story, journey and speaks about his experience of launching, growing and leading a team of a bunch of technology geeks at MakeUseOf.com, with us. Read More…

An Award-Winning Entrepreneur, Dan Martell Shares His Journey, Cust-Dev Case Study of Flowtown, Learning & More.

Dan Martell, who began his journey back in 2001 when he was just 22, is today one of the most recognized entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley. His first startup, Spheric Technologies – that had more than 20 Fortune 500 companies as clients, grew well over 150% for 3-4 consecutive years. Dan sold it and moved to silicon valley with an intention to be among the best people in the industry.

He soon started advising startups and his advice have lead to the success of hundreds of companies. The award-winning entrepreneur, Dan is also an angel investor. However, Dan’s present focus is Flowtown – a social media discovery engine, which he co-founded with another amazing entrepreneur, Ethan Bloch. Flowtown, today, serves over 20,000 small businesses and is growing faster than ever.

After a series of email exchange, we could finally arrange an audio interview appointment with Dan and now we have got the entire audio transcription for you. In this interview, Dan speaks on various subjects including Kiva – a non-profit organization, Flowtown, and most importantly, how lean startup/customer development methodologies turned around Flowtown from a failure to a success.

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Sarah Prevette, Founder of Sprouter, Shares Her Startup Story, Talks About The Importance of Networking For Startups And More.

Sarah Prevette is the CEO & founder of Sprouter, a social network for entrepreneurs. Sarah always believed in sharing, learning and socializing so that everybody can benefit from each other – and hence the concept of Sprouter evolved. The company is growing rapidly under her leadership ever since it was launched last year. Sarah was named among the 30 Under 30 young entrepreneurs by the Inc. Magazine, and had appeared on several main stream media channels such as CTV, Profit Magazine, the Toronto Star, and Wall Street Journal. She has also been featured on several online technology blogs including Mashable.

Today, after Erin Bury – the Community Manager of Sprouter, introduced us to her, Sarah gave us her interview and provided her insights to Foundora about her entrepreneurial journey, lessons and of course Sprouter.

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Founder of IMified, Adam Kalsey Shares His Entrepreneurial Story, Learning and Gives Advice to Upcoming Startups

Adam Kalsey has been an Internet entrepreneur since 1995. He was the founder of IMified, a platform for instant messaging applications and was the CTO and VP of product for the cloud computing and advertising company, Pheedo. Adam became the product manager and developer evangelist for Tropo after his company IMified was acquired by Tropo’’s parent company Voxeo. Adam’s passion for startups and zeal to share his learning led him to found a startup community called SacStarts for Sacramento area.

Unlike many entrepreneurs/developers, Adam shares his knowledge and expertise with others on his blog. With over 10 years of experience, Adam Kalsey talked about his background, failures, learning from his startups, and a lot more on Foundora. Don’t miss reading it.

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Markus & Ola, Co-Founders of AlternativeTo, Share Their Startup Story and Experience Running a Content Site

Markus Olausson and Ola Johnasson, the co-founders of a Swedish Startup – AlternativeTo.net, have been providing some incredible alternatives to software, applications, and web based services with their crowd-powered directory. Although AlternativeTo was launched just around 18 months ago, it has come a really long way; they have been featured in several high-profile technology blogs, magazines and TV channels (including BBC) across Europe, North America and South America.

Today, AlternativeTo has become a hot favorite for it’s users and is still growing with an even rapid pace – thanks to the amazing team work delivered by the co-founders and to their strategies. Together, they make an incredible pair – both as friends and as a successful startup team. Markus and Ola, in this interview, share their startup story, journey so far and their learning, with us on Foundora. Read On….

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Phanindra Sama, Co-founder of redBus, Tells His Startup Story, Speaks About Challenges of Indian Startups.

redBus.in, a rapidly growing Indian startup, is revolutionizing the way people book bus tickets. And, it all started when the co-founder & the CEO of redBus, Phanindra Sama could not meet his family on a festival.

In just few years of it’s launch, Phanindra & his team scaled redBus to a level where it’s revenue is above $12M. And presently, it is considered to be one of the fastest growing Indian web startup – thanks to its great service to bus travelers.

With an aim of $100M in revenues by 2012, Phanindra and team is busy expanding and growing their business. However, in spite of having a hectic schedule, Phani agreed to take some time out for an interview on Foundora and shared the story behind redBus, how he quit his day job, Indian startup scenes, and a lot more – check it out.

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