Craig Vodnik of Cleverbridge on Having Offices in 3 Continents
Craig Vodnik is the cofounder of Cleverbridge, a global subscription billing provider. Founded in 2005, Cleverbridge has grown to 300+ employees with offices in Cologne (Germany), Chicago, San Francisco and Tokyo. They have done this all without raising any outside money. At the beginning of his career in 1995, Craig served as the Webmaster of the Chicago Tribune, where he launched its first website. Outside of Cleverbridge, Craig helps develop other entrepreneurs as a mentor at 1871, Catapult Chicago, Junto Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Enterpriseworks Entrepreneur-In-Residence and as a board member of Hyde Park Angels.
In this episode, our talk covers a wide range of topics, including how Cleverbridge maintains their company culture with offices in different countries, why you should bootstrap for as long as you can, and when the right time to take venture capital is. Plus, we discuss why we need more risk taking entrepreneurs in Chicago, what fantasy football can teach you about business, how to go about finding and cultivating mentors, and why he decided to join Hyde Park Angels and become an angel investor.
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