During today’s roundtable, we worked with two 1M/1M premium members, one from Israel and another from Malaysia, and a pharmaceutical entrepreneur from California.
Zuznow
First, Racheli Levkovich from Tel-Aviv, Israel, pitched Zuznow, a mid-tier solution for transforming e-commerce web sites into mobile friendly formats. Zuznow’s solution already has about 80 customers, mostly in Israel, and the company is generating about $5,000 in revenue. The primary go-to-market strategy is through channel partners who are e-commerce platform vendors. One such, with 80,000 customers, is in the process of closing a deal with Zuznow. Others are in the pipeline.
Racheli discussed some of her technology challenges, as well as go-to-market challenges. In general, channel partnerships do not automatically produce results. A systematic process of lead generation through the channel partner, as well as lead qualification and telesales would need to be created to actually turn the channel partnerships into revenue generating customers. That would be one of the primary focus areas for Racheli within the 1M/1M program.
Igdrasol
Then Jason Dekker from Fountain Valley, California, pitched Igdrasol, a company with two lines of products: a chemotherapy drug, and a personalized diagnostic product for measuring the dosage levels of chemotherapy drugs. Jason shared with us that 17% of the patients are given an under-dosage of chemotherapy, while 68% of the patients are given an over-dose. The drug competes with Celgene’s Abraxine that did $440M in 2011 sales. Competitors include a generic from Natco. Also, Teva has a patent infringement lawsuit against Celgene. The diagnostic product doesn’t seem to have a competitor currently.
To me (and I am not an expert in pharma), it seems that the company is in two vastly different businesses, and the strategies for each should be different. One possibility is to sell the diagnostic business to Quest, and finance the drug business with the proceeds. The company has some convoluted ideas of tying the diagnostic product with the drug, and that just doesn’t feel right to me.
Quantips
Next Talat Fakhri from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, pitched Quantips. Talat wants to focus on iPhone games, and is pursuing a two-pronged strategy of doing outsourced game development work for other customers, as well as working on a game of his own. Talat is a premium members of the 1M/1M program, and it turns out that we have another premium member in the U.K. who is looking for one of two things: (a) a co-founder with substantial game development knowledge and technical expertise, or (b) an outsourcing partner who may be able to offer the same as a vendor. Well, Talat can certainly offer the latter. Who knows, as they start dating, this may evolve to something more substantial.
One thing I will say to all entrepreneurs in search of co-founders: do not rush into a marriage. Date first, and preferably for a long time. Get to know each other. Build trust. Then, and only then should you think of marrying.
You can listen to the recording of today’s roundtable here.
As always, I would very much like to hear about your business, so let me invite you to come and pitch at one of our free 1M/1M public roundtables. We will be holding future roundtables at 8:00 a.m. PDT on:
Thursday, August 2, 138th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
Thursday, August 23, 139th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
Thursday, August 30, 140th 1M/1M Roundtable, Register Here.
If you want a deeper relationship with me, you are very welcome to join the 1M/1M premium program. If you have any questions about the program, please, first study the website, especially What to expect from the 1M/1M premium program and the FAQs. If you have additional questions, please email me, and I would be very happy to respond. Please note that I work exclusively with 1M/1M entrepreneurs.
I also invite you to join the 1M/1M mailing list for the ease and convenience of getting updates. This way we can stay in touch, and it will help you to decide if 1M/1M is a program for you.
Sramana Mitra is the founder of the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative, an educational, business development and incubation program that aims to help one million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond. She is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and strategy consultant, she writes the blog Sramana Mitra On Strategy, and is author of the Entrepreneur Journeys book series and Vision India 2020. From 2008 to 2010, Mitra was a columnist for Forbes. As an entrepreneur CEO, she ran three companies: DAIS, Intarka, and Uuma. Sramana has a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.