#36 James Berdigans 🇱🇻 (Printify) on record Series A, conquering the US, making connections that enable life-changing opportunities & impressing investors with scrappiness

James Berdigans is the CEO and Co-founder of Printify - a print-on-demand platform that helps you create and sell custom products. An alumnus of 500 startups and one of the leaders of the Latvian startup community, Printify just raised a whopping 45mUSD series A round to build on their growth in the US and expand in other markets.

In this episode, we talk about the origins of Printify and the rise of the on-demand printing industry as well as starting a business in the US from Latvia. James also shares his scrappy stories of partnering with Shopify, meeting his co-founders, and getting into 500 startups. Finally, we discuss the Silicon Valley investor community and the timing of your series A round.

The topics covered in this episode with Timestamps

[01:50] - THE ORIGINS OF PRINTIFY

• Building on previous venture successes and failures
• Learning from painful mistakes
• What does Printify do

[05:20] - WHY ON-DEMAND PRINTING INDUSTRY IS HOT

• Democratization of content creation and product design

[07:15] - ON STARTING A COMPANY ON THE US MARKET FROM LATVIA

• The attractiveness of the US market
• Benefits of building a US company from Latvia
• Running a lean and efficient digital sales organization
• Supporting sales with content marketing
• Finding one channel to acquire customers without a budget

[12:40] -STORY HOW JAMES PITCHED TO SHOPIFY

• Hustle in Canada leads to a fruitful partnership

[16:45] -  ON GETTING ACCESS TO THE SILICON VALLEY INVESTOR COMMUNITY

• Using 3F’s to kickstart the company
• Raising your first investment from your accountant!
• Getting into 500 startups
• Finding your investor-champion

[22:10] ON BEING BE SCRAPPY & EARNING YOUR LUCK

• Be scrappy! Doing more with less capital
• Story of meeting co-founders
• Definition of luck
• You will get a lot of ‘No’s. but you only need one ‘Yes’
• Bonus: story how Pursuit of Scrappiness got its name

[30:20] - ON TIMING YOUR SERIES A

• Marshmallow test for founders - are companies raising too much too early?
• Having Richard Branson and Will Smith among investors
• How to select the right investors

[36:40] - ON ANGEL INVESTING

• A busy Founder/CEO must have priorities straight
• Angel investors will introduce you to their network

To reach out to James use:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/berdigans/

Website: https://printify.com

Find out more on https://www.pursuitofscrappiness.co/ 

Support for this episode comes from Nexpay > https://paynexpay.com/

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