GLG's $5000 Research Reports

Jesse Pujji shares how he and his co-founder cleverly bootstrapped their company Ampush by selling research reports through GLG (an expert network platform) to hedge funds.

"When I was at Goldman Sachs, I decided to start something with my co-founder. During my 90-day wind down period at Goldman, I used the firm's GLG subscription to research our future business idea. We did 3 phone calls a week with digital ad experts and lead gen people.

After starting Ampush, we were bootstrapping and needed money. I thought 'Let's get ourselves on GLG as experts.' I called my old rep and said 'Can I be an expert?' They said yes. I set my rate at $500 an hour.

We were doing 5 calls a week, making good money. Then someone asked, 'Do you guys have research that you can put together?' We looked at each other and said, 'Yeah, we have a report, it's $5,000.'

We spent 4 days putting together a 50-page report explaining the lead gen industry, who the competitors were. Then GLG started getting more questions about the report. By the time it was done, we sold 30 reports. That was Ampush's angel round - we raised $150,000 selling research reports to hedge fund people."