How Entrepreneurs Make the World a Better Place

Episode 172: Beerud Sheth co-founder and CEO of Gupshup and founder of Elance (now Upwork) talks about building businesses, money, and the positive power of entrepreneurship. 

Guest Biography

Beerud Sheth Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Beerud is the cofounder and CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading platform for cloud messaging and conversational experiences. It is used by over 30K+ developers and handles over 4.5 billion messages per month. He previously founded and led Elance (now Upwork, a publicly listed company), the pioneer of online freelancing and the gig economy.

Prior to founding Elance, he worked in the financial services industry – modeling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives at Merrill Lynch and Citicorp Securities. His graduate research, at the MIT Media Lab, involved developing autonomous learning agents for personalized news filtering.

Beerud earned an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT & a B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Bombay, where he was awarded the Institute Silver Medal.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• The scarcity mindset of an immigrant versus an abundance mindset -- and the importance of having both.
• Why Beerud is betting on text messaging and how he evaluates what type of businesses to start.
• Why the best way to make the world a better place might be to have more entrepreneurs!   

Show notes: http://www.inspiredmoney.fm/172

Find more from our guest:

• Gupshup
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

Mentioned in the episode:

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Gupshup messaging platform wins prize backed by Gates Foundation, others
• Kleiner Perkins
• Pequot Ventures
• New Enterprise Associates (NEA)

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Special thanks to Jim Kimo West for the music.