ScaleApp Podcasts with Prof Dan Isenberg
ScaleApp is chock full of content and interviews with successful scalers that will help you grow your company better. DO NOT LISTEN IF YOU ARE A STARTUP: ScaleApp is for growing ventures, not starting them. (But if you are a startup with serious growth aspirations, ScaleApp IS for you).
ScaleApp Podcasts with Prof Dan Isenberg
Episode 11 - Epignosis - The world leader in online corporate learning (and the weird way it got started)
Meet Thanos Papagelis and Dimitris Tsingos, co-founders of Epignosis, the global leader in online corporate training. $50 million ARR, 55% and above margins, 50% and above annual growth, profitable since 2010, bootstrapped without VC.
They were so good that when they tried to raise growth capital, no VCs (except 1) believed their story and responded with standard VC bullshit - "You haven't taken enough risks." "You are under-investing." "We just don't believe you."
It gets curiouser:
- "Being founded in the depths of the Greek recession was essential to our success."
- "We founded Epignosis out of necessity." (So much for the vacuous distinction between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship).
- "We were introverts and did not want to talk to customers. That helped us develop a product without bias in it, one they really wanted and used." Whoa - I thought you were supposed to be out there talking to customers!
One of the many things I love about ScaleApp Podcasts is that it challenges our conventional wisdom with facts and examples.