Thread by @jspujji

In 2010, I was 25 and bootstrapping my first startup.

A random phone call turned into $150,000 of capital with NO dilution

This is the story of one of my greatest hustles👇🏾👇🏾👇🏾

1/ When @ampush started, we were a “quant” digital marketing company.

Our corny slogan “Wall Street Thinking. Performance Marketing.”

We self-funded ~$50k + $50k in credit card debt.

About 5 mos in, I received a random call from a friend at a Citadel (large hedge fund)...

2/ “What is Quinstreet? They just filed to go public. Aren’t you doing some internet marketing thing? What the hell is a click, lead, etc? Is this a good business?”

I replied: “Yes, I am!” and began explaining the entire $QNST business model...

A lightbulb went off in my head!

3/ I should be getting paid for this!

When I worked at Goldman, we used a firm called GLG which connected investors with industry experts.

The experts got paid big $. So I immediately called my old rep...

4/ “Are you getting a lot of questions about $QNST?” She said yes and I asked her to sign me up as an expert at $500 per hour. Cha-ching!

Then it went next level.

5/ On my 3rd call, the investor was in love:

“You are the perfect expert, you know the investment side and you know the industry. Do you happen to have any industry research reports you’d recommend?”

I locked eyes with my co-founder, @TheNickShah.

This was the moment…

6/ "Oh Yeah, Absolutely. We have a report, it's $5000. It covers industry, verticals, market size, different competitive dynamics, how the industry works, the economics. Everything"

The hedge fund guy says, "Great, send me a table of contents."

We had no report.

7/ Nick is making the Table of Contents while we were still on the call. We get off the phone and send it over.

5 min later. We get a reply - "Great, $5,000 works."

The next week and weekend are spent building an entire McKinsey style industry due diligence report...

8/ The investor's over the moon. He's like "This is great. This is exactly what I needed."

So we contacted GLG and several other companies and said, "Hey, we have a research report available now."

We sold about 15 right off the bat.

9/ I wanted to keep pushing forward: "lets go to the next level! there must be a bunch of people searching for info, lets buy some keywords and throw up a website selling the report" I said.

So Ampush .com launches to sell the report.

This is where things go wrong...

10/ We were buying AdWords around" Quinstreet" and "Quinstreet IPO.” "Quinstreet IPO looking for research" and "research the online lead generation space."

We got a lot of leads, but no one willing to buy.

Then we got an email that felt like a punch in the stomach...

11/ Quinstreet's general counsel asked us to cease and desist from buying their keywords

They're not a fan of how we phrase the report's title. It sounds like we're selling data directly from them. Confidential info.

A few explanatory calls and an apology email luckily saved us

12/ We go on to sell 30 copies of the report at $5K a pop. Almost all through research networks or personal connections.

$150,000 with no dilution, no strings attached.

We learn to ask before using someone's name.

And have our first win as a digital marketing company.

13/ For another one of my favorite bootstrapping experiences - now at $100k MRR 6 months in, check out how one of my newest businesses took off like a rocket ship:

https://twitter.com/jspujji/status/1397318178150170629?s=20

14/ Why I love this story:

+ We sold to raise, and honed our skills in the processes
+ We leaned into our background in finance for a unique advantage
+ NO DILUTION!!!
+ Calm and careful communication saved us from disaster

Follow @jspujji for more stories!