#125: Created The World’s Largest Subscription Service For Creative Design

#Tech #Entrepreneur #Business #Greg Head

35:56

In this premiere episode of "The God Hook," host Carol Costello introduces the chilling story of Richard Beasley, infamously known as the Ohio Craigslist Killer. In previously unreleased jailhouse recordings, Beasley portrays himself as a devout Christian, concealing his manipulative and predatory behavior. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Beasley's deceitfulness extends beyond the victims he buried in shallow graves. Listen to the preview of a bonus conversation between Carol and Emily available after the episode. Additional info at carolcostellopresents.com . Do you have questions about this series? Submit them for future Q&A episodes . Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see additional videos, photos, and conversations. For early and ad-free episodes and exclusive bonus content, subscribe to the podcast via Supporting Cast or Apple Podcasts. EPISODE CREDITS Host - Carol Costello Co-Host - Emily Pelphrey Producer - Chris Aiola Sound Design & Mixing - Lochlainn Harte Mixing Supervisor - Sean Rule-Hoffman Production Director - Brigid Coyne Executive Producer - Gerardo Orlando Original Music - Timothy Law Snyder SPECIAL THANKS Kevin Huffman Zoe Louisa Lewis GUESTS Doug Oplinger - Former Managing Editor of the Akron Beacon Journal Volkan Topalli - Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology Amir Hussain - Professor of Theological Studies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://evergreenpodcasts.supportingcast.fm…

Practical Founders Podcast « »
#125: Created the World’s Largest Subscription Service for Creative Design – Russ Perry

about a year ago 1:08:10

MP3•Episode home

Quote from Russ Perry, founder and CEO of Design Pickle

“The game for practical SaaS founders really comes down to recognizing that there is a large market size for very boring niche companies. Finding that niche is the fastest path to success. Don’t be afraid to be boring and specific.

“If I were to do Design Pickle all over again, I would have just picked a vertical niche, like we are the graphic design provider for feline mobile cutting trucks or something. There are easily 10,000 mobile pet grooming businesses in the United States, so probably just cat groomers.

“We just went super broad when we started, and it’s been fine, but it would have been easier for us to have focused on a niche. When you have such limited resources and time and money and capital, having that narrow niche makes it easier to maximize all those dollars and investments.”

Links

Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale

This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io.

The Practical Founders Podcast

Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel.

Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.

141 episodes

Practical Founders Podcast

#125: Created the World’s Largest Subscription Service for Creative Design – Russ Perry

Practical Founders Podcast

published about a year ago

MP3•Episode home

Quote from Russ Perry, founder and CEO of Design Pickle

Links

Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale

The Practical Founders Podcast

Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.

141 episodes

#Tech #Entrepreneur #Business #Greg Head

All episodes

Practical Founders Podcast

1
#142: Why This 3x SaaS Founder Couldn't Stay Retired to Launch His New Al Startup - Josh LaSov 58:37

7 days ago58:37

58:37

Josh LaSov is the founder and former CEO of Satori Reporting, an advanced reporting and business intelligence (BI) solution for mid-market businesses that use NetSuite financial software. Satori provided pre-built reports and dashboards, a tailored data warehouse, and detailed data models that leveraged the popular Power BI software. Josh launched Satori, his second NetSuite solution, in 2019 and grew quickly in the NetSuite ecosystem, with a savvy team and no outside funding. Satori was sold it to private equity buyer Insight Partners in 2022 and combined with another NetSuite provider, Zone & Co. In this episode, Josh talks about the benefits and challenges of building add-on solutions in the NetSuite ecosystem, their ROI of non-dilutive funding and strategic angel investors, selling two companies then getting bored and restless, and starting his third company, Cauzzy.ai to provide AI-powered automated financial analysis and insights. Quote from Josh LaSov, founder of Satori Reports and Cauzzy.ai “When you have a good exit, you can assume the lifestyle that you desire to live, you can slow down. So from 2022 until starting Cauzzy.ai in 2024, I did that, I worked out every day. I listened to more podcasts than any human should listen to. I educated myself, read every newspaper and news site. I took time for myself “What I found was...it wasn't fulfilling. I needed more. I didn't want to be on the sidelines. I felt myself getting slower, like I was retiree. I appreciated the journey more than the destination. But there's a balance and I could achieve that balance. “I needed to do something, but I didn't want to just jump into something just to do it. I was to be patient until I found something that I was passionate about and that's realizable. I thought, I can do this again, I want to do this again. Let's take our time and focus a bit more on balance this time, but let's get back in the game.” Links Josh LaSov on LinkedIn Zone Reporting (formerly Satori Reporting) on LinkedIn Zone Reporting (formerly Satori Reporting) Cauzzy.ai website NetSuite website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

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#141: Inside Acquire.com's Process for Selling Sub-$5M SaaS Companies - Andrew Gazdecki 55:39

14 days ago55:39

55:39

Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of Acquire.com , a marketplace of buyers and sellers of smaller, profitable SaaS products with revenues between $100,000 and $5,000,000. Andrew sold his own software company and learned how little support and information was available to sell a software product for under $5-10 million in deal size. Acquire.com has helped over 2000 entrepreneurs sell their software products for a combined value of more than $500 million. Acquire offers additional support to help founders package, promote, negotiate, and close their transactions. Potential buyers are vetted for financial viability and identity confirmation before getting confidential details for any deal. In this episode, Andrew describes their typical seller and buyer profiles, the typical process for a founder to sell a small and profitable SaaS company, typical multiples of profit that financial buyers offer, and founder transition periods. Quote from Andrew Gazdecki, founder and CEO of Acquire.com "There are three buckets of active buyers on Acquire.com. The first is below $100,000 net profit. That's going to be an individual buyer looking for something with maybe a little bit of product market fit. They want to take the product, grow it a little bit, see what they can do from there. They're buying a very, very early startup. So some buyers will actually start small and then work their way up. "From $100,000 to $1 million in net profit in our middle range, the buyer will a blend of "micro PE firms" and holding companies that want to get their hands on a business where there's a lot more going on. And then a $1 million in profit and above is going to be for the more traditional private equity or strategic buyers." Links Andrew Gazdecki on LinkedIn Andrew Gazdecki on Twitter Acquire.com on LinkedIn Acquire.com website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

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#140: The Anti-Silicon Valley Playbook: How Genius Monkey Built a $100M Ad Tech Business on Their Own Terms - Seth Hassell and Clint Ethington 1:04:34

21 days ago1:04:34

1:04:34

Seth Hassell and Clint Ethington are the co-founders of Genius Monkey, a programmatic ad tech platform with proven targeting, tracking, and attribution for optimized results. Seth and Clint were childhood friends who worked on many business ventures before launching Genius Monkey in 2009, leveraging their experience in digital ad technologies. Genius Monkey grew steadily as a bootstrapped company, with the founders and team working hard for years to improve their platform, prove results to clients, recruit agencies, and grow their team. Most ad tech peers took VC funding and are no longer around, but Genius Monkey is still growing and getting more profitable every year. In this episode, Seth and Clint talk about their unusual long-time partnership, the power of profits, competing with giants, building a strong company culture, and leveraging non-dilutive funding to grow faster. Quote from Seth Hassell and Clint Ethington, co-founders of Genius Monkey "Don't be afraid to fail with the smaller stuff. A lot of times, people don't take the chance of seeing, "What if we do it this way?" What happens? And all those little things that could become something big, they never pursue because they're comfortable with where they're at." "Fail fast. Try stuff out. If you see it's not working, shelf it and go to the next thing. Move on until you find that one that's doing better than where you're at right now. Then, I will put the determination and the motivation behind it to see it through. Clint and I tried through lots of things that just didn't work out." "If it wasn't working, we were okay. We wouldn't say, "It's all over, close the doors." It wasn't like that. It was like, "Okay, we know that doesn't work. What's our next thing we're trying?" And we always had different ideas in the background." Links Genius Monkey on LinkedIn Genius Monkey website Cypress Growth Capital website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

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#139: Bootstrapped Founder is Getting Ready for the AI Wave at $20M ARR - Shalin Jain 1:07:35

28 days ago1:07:35

1:07:35

Shalin Jain is the founder and CEO of HappyFox, a successful bootstrapped company that provides modern help desk management software for customer service, support, and IT management organizations. Shalin and his small team in India built many successful products from 2000-2010, then focused on HappyFox and moved to the US in 2011. HappyFox is a mid-market product that sells across industries and departments with an efficient product-led growth (PLG) approach. The product has matured with successful add-on products for live chat, AI support, business intelligence, and workflows. The company has over 2200 customers, 110 employees, and now $20 million in revenue. Shalin plans to keep growing and leverage modern AI technology to become a much bigger company based on the disciplined product culture they have created. Quote from Shalin Jain, founder and CEO of HappyFox “I think software and its pricing need to be deflationary, just like hardware, where memory prices, hardware prices, and server prices have all been deflationary. But we are now going through a phase where software is actually getting more and more expensive. “With the advent of AI and automation, software will become cheaper and more usage-driven. So, the best survivors in that phase would be the efficiently run companies that have not bloated themselves by charging more today to have more employees and spend more on ads. “I believe software needs to get cheaper because it's getting cheaper to run software every day; it's getting cheaper to outsource to AI and build stuff with the help of AI as well. So software cost should not go up; it should go down.” Links Shalin Jain on LinkedIn HappyFox on LinkedIn HappyFox website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

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1
#138: Achieved Strategic Acquisition Just 2 Years After Launch - Brian Kesselman 1:00:15

5 weeks ago1:00:15

1:00:15

Brian Kesselman is cofounder and now CRO of Skematic , a compliance management and workflow software for financial services firms. Brian was a lawyer for major financial services companies who helped manage internal compliance in this highly regulated industry. He took a job selling compliance software and broke sales records before starting Skematic with a coworker and launching in September 2022. Skematic grew quickly by solving an acute problem for lawyers and compliance execs just like him in his industry. The company became profitable quickly as Brian focused on outbound selling with cold calls and savvy demos to busy compliance executives. They grew fast, were profitable in just over a year, and attracted attention from potential acquirers. In June 2024, Financial Recovery Technologies, a fintech legal software company, acquired Skematic for an undisclosed amount, including some cash and incentives. Brian and his cofounder still run Skematic and enjoy being part of a bigger software company owned by a private family office that is highly aligned with their culture and values. Quote from Brian Kesselman, cofounder and CRO of Skematic "My co-founder Charles and I had worked at a number of PE-backed software companies. And we had our own opinions about what it's like to work at a PE-backed company." "The family office structure is very different from a private equity firm across the board. They're looking typically to build profitable cash-producing assets. And so that enables our team to think long-term, which benefits not only the founders and the people that are still participating in the upside of the business." "That also means that the clients will benefit because you are going to do things that will benefit the clients every step of the way, one year, two years, five years, 10 years. And that was paramount to us, given that we've grown up in this very niche industry and our reputations to us are pretty much everything we have." Links Brian Kesselman on LinkedIn Skematic on LinkedIn Skematic website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

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#137: Her Amazing Story of 0-$30M ARR with No Outside Funding - Rebecca Shostak 1:04:57

6 weeks ago1:04:57

1:04:57

Rebecca Shostak is co-founder and chief brand officer of Flodesk , the popular email marketing software for small businesses that care about beautiful branded emails. After prototyping the product and validating the problem, they launched in 2019 with a viral explosion that still powers their bootstrapped growth. Six years later, Flodesk has over $30M in annual recurring revenues with 75 employees and over 100,000 paid customers. They have been profitable since the second week after launch, driven by great product design, the email footer “viral loop,” and referrals from customers and influencers. In this episode, Rebecca shares her insights on product design, their unlimited pricing model, working with her co-founder/CEO, Martha Bitar, why they haven’t taken outside funding, and where AI is showing usefulness in their products. Quote from Rebecca Shostack, co-founder of Flodesk “The reason you hire is never to solve a problem. You need to be sharp and figure out how to solve the problem on your own. Then, you hire people once you've proven something. “When you want to hire someone to run your paid ads, for example, you first need to figure out the basics. Then, you can hire someone to come in to own that so they can scale that operation. “But it doesn't work to hire someone to come in and figure out something that you can't figure out yourself. How can you hire someone to manage something you don't understand?” Links Rebecca Shostak on LinkedIn Flodesk on LinkedIn Flodesk website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#136: Practical Founder Has Big Exit and Un-Retires to Build 2nd SaaS Success - Brian Dosal 1:11:26

7 weeks ago1:11:26

1:11:26

Brian Dosal was the founder and CEO of BrightGauge, a software company he bootstrapped and grew to almost $10M ARR with his brother before successfully selling the company in 2019. BrightGauge was a business analytics and dashboard for key metrics for the Managed Service Provider (MSP) industry. After his intense 9-year journey at BrightGauge, Brian “retired” to spend more time with his growing family. He enjoyed his free time but eventually returned to the software startup game with his second company, Strety. Strety is a fast-growing SaaS business with a popular app for small businesses using the EOS® approach to manage their businesses. It has 10 employees, hundreds of customers and partners, and no outside funding. Brian brought back some of his previous team to build another sustainable and valuable software company. Links Brian Dosal on LinkedIn BrightGauge website Strety on LinkedIn Strety website Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) website Traction book by Gino Wickman Anything You Want book by Derek Sivers The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.…

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#135: Vertical SaaS Investor Shares Proven Paths to Scale Up Big – Dave Yuan 55:49

8 weeks ago55:49

55:49

Dave Yuan is the founder of Tidemark , an active growth equity investor focusing on vertical SaaS companies with outsized advantages that can become “control points” in their markets and grow very big. Dave and Tidemark have invested in successful companies like Toast, ServiceTitan, Karbon and Dutchie. In this episode, Dave shares some of the most useful strategic growth frameworks for vertical SaaS companies to grow through winning market share, expanding with additional products, and even extending through an industry ecosystem serving new markets. We also talk about the impact of AI on established vertical SaaS players and how it’s both an opportunity and a thre Tidemark supports the global community of practical vertical SaaS founders by publishing their strategic growth frameworks , their annual Vertical SaaS Benchmarketing Report, and they host the annual Vertical SaaS Collective Live conference for founders. Quote from Dave Yuan, founder at Tidemark “Vertical SaaS founders should not be asleep with AI. You can wave it off, view it as a toy, and say that no one’s going to trust that outcome or use it. That may have been the case, but things are changing really quickly. “Lots of smart people are making it better every month, and you have a massive opportunity to improve it with your data and workflow. “Jump into it to control your destiny. Don’t get caught sleeping without AI in your product in a useful way.” Links Dave Yuan on LinkedIn Tidemark on LinkedIn Tidemark website Tidemark Vertical SaaS Knowledge Project VSaaS Collective Live 2025 conference Vertical SaaS Benchmark Report 2024 The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

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#134: When It’s Time to Close: Helping Founders Shut Down Right – Dori Yona 44:27

9 weeks ago44:27

44:27

Dori Yona is co-founder and CEO of SimpleClosure, a technology- and people-powered company that helps founders wind down and dissolve a startup or business that is no longer viable. Shutting down a business can be complicated, costly, and risky for founders. SimpleClosure manages the unique processes with automation and expert support. SimpleClosure has helped tech startup founders wind down over 500 startups, businesses that closed or have gone through a sale of assets. It manages the important steps of a winddown, including legal, regulatory, employees, investors, intellectual property, customers, data, and more. In this episode, Dori shares the key considerations for SaaS founders who have run out of VC funding or need to shut down their companies for other reasons. Quote from Dori Yona, CEO of SimpleClosure “The biggest thing for software startup founders and CEOs is to move fast. Your time is your biggest resource in life as an entrepreneur, whether you’re venture-backed or bootstrapping. You’re spending your time, you’re spending your energy, you’re spending the best years of your career. “So move fast, learn fast, test fast, iterate quickly, grow fast, fail fast. Ultimately, when you’re building your own business, you’re sacrificing an easy, convenient, cushy job anywhere else to take this risk. “The faster you can grow, learn, build, and fail, the better. It’s ultimately to your advantage to make the most of your time. Our time is our most expensive resource.” Links Dori Yona on LinkedIn SimpleClosure on LinkedIn SimpleClosure website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

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#133: Bootstrapper Sells School Fundraising Platform to PE Investors - Howard Gottlieb 58:47

10 weeks ago58:47

58:47

Howard Gottlieb started Read-A-Thon in 2012 as a reading-based fundraising platform that helped students raise money while boosting education. Their easy platform and simple fundraising approach created amazing results. The Read-a-Thon business grew steadily and profitably without any outside funding. Read-A-Thon helped over 4000 schools and students raise over $30 million in donations. Their platform has tracked over 30 billion reading minutes by students who have used it to earn donations. Read-A-Thon was successfully acquired by private equity investors in early 2023 for an undisclosed amount. The business has continued to grow and expand with a new CEO and key executives, with Howard on the board as an advisor and now a minority investor in the company. Quote from Howard Gottlieb, founder of Read-A-Thon “I have been very blessed and very lucky in my journey with the success of Read-A-Thon. Everyone should realize that and have some humility. “If you succeed at the game, you can be the smartest guy or the smartest woman with the most brilliant idea, but it still will take 50% or more luck for everything to align correctly to succeed. Just realize that. It takes a lot of good fortune. “At Read-A-Thon, our lucky moment was COVID because online fundraising was only in its infancy. When COVID hit and schools were out, Read-A-Thon was almost the only viable option. Our growth went from 40% a year to 100%, then 150% a year. So that was luck after all these years.” Links Howard Gottlieb on LinkedIn Read-A-Thon on LinkedIn Read-A-Thon website The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

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#132: Bootstrapper Serving Private Equity Firms Acquired by PE-Backed Strategic – Richard Change 1:09:35

11 weeks ago1:09:35

1:09:35

Richard Change is co-founder and CEO of PFA Solutions , the provider of FirmView software. FirmView® is the leading carry and compensation management platform for private equity investors to manage their internal compensation from fees and carried interest. Richard was a senior architect for a large private equity firm when he discovered this complex problem that was being managed on spreadsheets. He left to start PFA Solutions and bootstrapped the development of FirmView with consulting revenue. From inception, through growth and ultimately acquisition, Richard never took any outside funding. FirmView adoption grew steadily, serving large private equity firms. PFA Solutions eventually grew to 34 employees before being acquired by Allvue Systems in 2024. Allvue is a private-equity-backed software company that serves the alternative investment industry. Quote from Richard Change, co-founder and CEO of PFA Solutions "Once you're in it, once you've decided to start a company, own it. No regrets. No one's going to save you. There's not a fairy godmother that will come and wave all your problems away. You have to own it. "There's no magic wand that will come and wave a wand and say, OK, all your problems are solved. And that magic wand in my mind wasn't outside capital; it wasn't VC funding. That wasn't magic because what do when the money runs out? "Is your product generating revenue? That's the real problem. If there's a problem to be solved and you have a great idea or solution, you can generate revenue from it. Prove to yourself and the world that this is viable and has product-market fit." Links PFA Solutions on LinkedIn PFA Solutions website Allvue Systems website Vista Equity Partners website Podcast Sponsor - Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. Message Cliff Sentell at Cypress to have an open discussion about your options. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

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#131: No-Code SaaS Platform Bootstrapped to 75,000 Customers – Rachit Khator 1:03:43

12 weeks ago1:03:43

1:03:43

Rachit Khator is the founder and CEO of Stackby, a no-code spreadsheet and database app builder that allows business users to create powerful spreadsheet-like applications with data links, automations, and workflows. Rachit and his team of 34 employees live in Surat, India, north of Mumbai. Stackby started when Rachit was working for a corporate venture firm in Michigan, doing repetitive manual data imports and analysis in Excel. He hired a developer to build a better tool and started to sell Stackby to early customers. They followed customer feedback to build an inexpensive and easy-to-use app that competes well with VC-funded competitors like AirTable for specific use cases. This bootstrapped company has grown in 4 years to serve 75,000 free and paid business customers. Now they are profitable and growing at 15% per month, upselling free business users to paid plans. Rachit has big ambitions for Stackby to serve millions of customers–and be an example success story in the Surat software community. Links Rachit Khator on LinkedIn Stackby on LinkedIn Stackby website Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

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#130: Profitable Product-Led Growth to $30 Million Before Big Exit – Joe Hyrkin 1:07:58

13 weeks ago1:07:58

1:07:58

Joe Hyrkin is the former CEO of Issuu, a content publishing platform for interactive marketing content. Issuu allows you to easily publish printable and PDF materials in various formats to websites and social media. It’s a global product-led success story with millions of customers and a successful and sustainable business. Issuu was started by four Danish founders before the company was moved to Silicon Valley in 2013 when Joe was hired as the CEO. Joe ran the company for almost 12 years, growing it profitably most years to almost $30 million in revenue before it was sold in mid-2024 to Bending Spoons, an Italian holding company that is an active acquirer of software companies. Joe talks about working with their early venture capital investors with a practical and patient approach. In 2021, Issuu raised $20 million in debt to invest in marketing and address technology issues, which helped them grow faster before being acquired. Quote from Joe Hyrkin, former CEO of Issuu “ From 2016 to 2020, we ran Issuu profitably, with what I like to call a ‘pro-grow’ approach—profitable and growing. Then, we raised debt to grow faster to about $30 million in revenue. The final year before we sold, we got back to profitability. So we got to profitability twice. “By being profitable, you’re committing to your customers that you’re going to be around and that they will not have to go find some other solution. You’re communicating to your team that this company can be counted on. In 2024 and 2025, everybody wants profitability, unless you’re an AI company. “Not having a profitability plan actually creates a lot of risk. I’m not saying you always have to be profitable, but you always have to have a foundation to know how we get to profitability. It’s a different way of thinking.” Links Joe Hyrkin on LinkedIn Issuu on LinkedIn Issuu website Bending Spoons website Podcast Sponsor – Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. Message Cliff Sentell at Cypress to have an open discussion about your options. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

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#129: On Freedom and Ownership With Software Entrepreneur Brian Hamilton 1:06:34

14 weeks ago1:06:34

1:06:34

Brian Hamilton is one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs and a leading expert on entrepreneurship. Today, Hamilton serves as chairman of software company LiveSwitch . He is known for his pioneering work in fintech, his advocacy for small businesses, and his commitment to criminal justice reform. As the founder of Sageworks (now Abrigo), America’s first fintech company, Hamilton developed technology that translates complex financial data, empowering millions of small business owners. Sageworks struggled and grew slowly for 10 years before pivoting to serve local banks and credit unions with financial tools to assess the creditworthiness of their small business loans. The practical SaaS company grew steadily and very profitably to more than 400 employees when it was sold in 2018. Through Inmates to Entrepreneurs and the Brian Hamilton Foundation, he encourages entrepreneurship as a means to economic opportunity. Hamilton’s work has been showcased by major media outlets like CNBC and Good Morning America, and he starred in ABC’s Free Enterprise TV series, an award-winning show based on Inmates to Entrepreneurs. Quote from Brian Hamilton, founder and former CEO of Sageworks "Being the founder of a tech company is like this: You're in a tunnel, it's dark, you're on your hands and knees, you're going through that tunnel, you're groping your way through, keep moving forward. "I know it sounds like such a BS, but we've all been there. I'm telling you, that is the picture: you're in this huge sewer tunnel, it's dark. You just gotta keep moving. Just keep chipping away. You do that, and you will get momentum somehow. "It's like compound interest. You start with a dollar and how does it turn into $10? You build momentum a little at a time. I've got to listen every day. I'm knocking off making the product better. You develop the physical property of compound interest and things will get better." Links LiveSwitch website Brian Hamilton Foundation Podcast Sponsor - Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. Message Cliff Sentell at Cypress to have an open discussion about your options. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#128: Solving a Challenging SaaS Growth Puzzle - Scott Desgrosseilliers 1:04:33

15 weeks ago1:04:33

1:04:33

Scott Desgrosseilliers is the founder and CEO of Wicked Reports , a leading multi-touch marketing attribution software for SMBs who use paid online advertising. Scott is a data and analytics expert who saw the costly limitations of simple performance reports from popular ad platforms. Wicked Reports was started as a bootstrapped software company in 2016 to serve smaller companies that spend millions on digital ads and other marketing, including email, SEO, and digital events. Determining which marketing activities drive incremental revenue is a tricky puzzle to unravel, but the payback of those insights is huge. Scott raised a little angel funding and a little SaaS debt and is still going strong with 28 employees and is figuring out their growth and retention puzzle to accelerate growth. Quote from Scott Desgrosseilliers, founder and CEO of Wicked Reports "We had offers, and we could have raised VC funding early on, but then the growth rate we would have had to hit was too high, which didn't make sense for our business. "A competitor of ours took $20 million from a similar VC, and then they had to cut a third of their team. I'm not saying anything against them. They have a nice product and they seem like good guys. They hired a ton of people and didn't hit the growth number, so they had to whack a bunch of them. "Money isn't always the answer. I'm sure there are cases where it solved all sorts of problems, but most VCs want to invest when you already have growth and net revenue retention at 120% when the efficient growth problem's already solved!" Links Scott Desgrosseilliers on LinkedIn Wicked Reports on LinkedIn Wicked Reports website Podcast Sponsor - Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#127: Scaling SaaS with Efficient Growth and Practical Funding - Bryan Forrester 1:11:52

16 weeks ago1:11:52

1:11:52

Bryan Forrester is CEO of Boostlingo, a leading on-demand platform for language live interpretation services that is growing quickly and can become a very large company. Boostlingo now has 160 employees and over 17,000 language interpreters who use their software to manage jobs, coordinate schedules, deliver interpreting services, and get paid. Bryan raised some practical funds from angels to start the company in 2016. The company grew 50% or more every year since then. In 2021, Boostlingo raised a growth equity round of funding from Mainsail Partners to provide capital for efficient growth and buy out some early investors. Boostlingo has since made several small acquisitions. Quote from Bryan Forrester, CEO and co-founder of Boostlingo "Our customers love our software, and our NPS is very high. So when we have customers who love our software, we have high retention and low churn, and our customer costs are really good. When all of that is combined, why would you slow down the growth? "Why would you take your foot off the gas pedal and be very profitable? And we raised a growth equity investment from Mainsail and started spending more on efficient marketing. And it worked. It worked. "What would have happened if we didn't take that small investment with our growth equity partner? We could still have had a positive outcome. We may have already sold the business. But we wouldn't have grown as big as we have become in this very big market." Links Bryan Forrester on LinkedIn Boostlingo on LinkedIn Boostlingo website Mainsail Partners website Podcast Sponsor - Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. Message Cliff Sentell at Cypress to have an open discussion about your options. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#126: Jason Fried on 20 Years Bootstrapping BaseCamp at 37signals 57:57

17 weeks ago57:57

57:57

Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of 37signals, makers of the popular Basecamp project management software, which is still growing and very profitable after 20 years. He is going long and still having fun as an engaged CEO, building great products with great marketing that stands out. Jason has long advocated for software founders to avoid VC funding and build sustainable businesses that are great for customers and generate healthy profits for the owners. His best-selling book, Rework , shared his practical approach for entrepreneurs. In this wide-ranging interview, Jason discusses these important topics: How the core principles of Basecamp remain focused on simplicity and essential tools for project management after 20 years. Why Basecamp targets small businesses, avoiding the enterprise market that many competitors chase. Why software should fit the needs of the user, rather than forcing users to adapt to complex tools for big companies How profitability, not growth, provides the freedom to innovate and explore new ideas. Why competing against your costs is more important than competing against other companies. How small teams have the agility to win against big companies. Quote from Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals “My sense of independence has always been important to me. That’s why I became an entrepreneur: to do things the way I wanted to do them. Otherwise, why be an entrepreneur? It’s true when you work, you’re working for your customers. That’s always going to be true. But you still have a sense of independence. You get to make your own decisions. “What people don’t realize is when you raise money, you don’t really work for yourself anymore. You really don’t. You work for someone else’s schedule, for someone else’s fulfillment, for someone else’s return. That never appealed to me. “I want our products to explain themselves. I want our success to explain ourselves. I don’t want to have to explain myself on a quarterly basis to somebody who’s trying to get a return out of me. I’m not interested. So for all those reasons, it just wasn’t right to raise big funding.” Links Jason Fried on LinkedIn Jason Fried on Twitter 37Signals on LinkedIn 37Signals website Basecamp website HEY website Ruby on Rails website Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#125: Created the World’s Largest Subscription Service for Creative Design – Russ Perry 1:08:10

18 weeks ago1:08:10

1:08:10

Quote from Russ Perry, founder and CEO of Design Pickle “The game for practical SaaS founders really comes down to recognizing that there is a large market size for very boring niche companies. Finding that niche is the fastest path to success. Don’t be afraid to be boring and specific. “If I were to do Design Pickle all over again, I would have just picked a vertical niche, like we are the graphic design provider for feline mobile cutting trucks or something. There are easily 10,000 mobile pet grooming businesses in the United States, so probably just cat groomers. “We just went super broad when we started, and it’s been fine, but it would have been easier for us to have focused on a niche. When you have such limited resources and time and money and capital, having that narrow niche makes it easier to maximize all those dollars and investments.” Links Russ Perry on LinkedIn Design Pickle on LinkedIn Design Pickle website Colorado River Partners Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel . Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#124: From Services to SaaS Products to a Successful Acquisition in India - Sunando Bhattacharya 1:05:41

19 weeks ago1:05:41

1:05:41

Sunando Bhattacharya spent 13 years as a business leader in managed IT services companies in India before starting his own cloud tech services business. This company grew slowly and an opportunity arose to create a software product for one of their clients. Two years later, in 2019, they had a few more Apiculus product customers and focused more on the product. Apiculus is a complete "cloud-as-a-service" software platform for data centers to offer, sell, deploy, and manage cloud data services for their own customers. They focused on smaller data centers in emerging markets, including Nepal, Oman, Rwanda, and others in the Middle East and Africa. The Apiculus business grew as it turned into a product-first company. They overcame many challenges during COVD and with customers and partners that didn't work out. In 2024, the company was acquired by Yotta, and Indian cloud technology company, in a strategic acquisition. Quote from Sunando Bhattacharya, founder of Apiculus "Somebody asked me what one thing you want for your company. I said I wanted my company featured on Great Places to Work. It's very important that the team that works with me finds this a great place to work. "The only secret ingredient for tech companies is people. It's people who make the technology. And if you take care of your team, you take care of your people, you will always do well. "This isn't just for services companies. Talent and ability are important. But for somebody to bring their best every day to work and deliver something world-class, which is world-beating, it needs a very different level of passion. And that passion will only come from your team if you take care for them." Links Sunando Bhattacharya on LinkedIn Apiculus on LinkedIn Apiculus website Yotta Data Services website Podcast Sponsor - Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#123: How Practical Founders Are Winning Big with Growth Equity Funding – Growth Street Partners 57:37

20 weeks ago57:37

57:37

Steve Wolfe and Nate Grossman are co-founders at Growth Street Partners , a growth equity firm focused on investing in early-stage B2B SaaS companies between $2M-$6M in ARR. They discuss how growth equity funding works for SaaS founders and how it allows entrepreneurs to maintain control while still benefiting from investment and liquidity. In this expert episode, Steve and Nate get specific and share real examples of how SaaS founders use growth equity to win bigger, when it can be a good fit for founders, and how founders scale their businesses and win with multiple exits. They also describe: Why Growth Street Partners focuses on practical founders with growth equity. How growth equity is different from traditional private equity and venture capital. Why successful founders are “learn-it-alls” with a growth mindset. How founders can achieve multiple exits through strategic partnerships. Why building a strong team is essential for scale-up success. Quote from Steve Wolfe, co-founder of Growth Street Partners “We know that when entrepreneurs have fun, their companies do much better. When founders continue to feel real ownership in their business and in the success of their company, they do a lot better, too. “So we set up our whole firm to enable that. We are investing to own just 20% to 50% of a business, so the founder still controls the company. We go to them with execution ideas and proven frameworks and approaches, but we are really just giving them the tools to make better decisions themselves. “They know they make the decisions in the end, so they will make sure that it’s successful. There’s something beautiful about that relationship and about helping that founder get to where they want to go while still feeling like they did it.” Links Steve Wolfe on LinkedIn Nate Grossman on LinkedIn Growth Street Partners on LinkedIn Growth Street Partners website Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#122: Going Long With Profitable Embedded Accounting Software After 13 Years – Raj Bhaskar 1:02:14

21 weeks ago1:02:14

1:02:14

Raj Bhaskar is a successful two-time practical software founder with one exit. In 2000, he started his first software company, VisualHOMES, to provide a comprehensive financial management software to public housing agencies. With no outside funding, the business grew to serve 65 regional providers serving 2 million residents before Yardi Systems acquired the company in 2010. After he left Yardi two years later, Raj and his brother launched Hurdlr to reach the wider small business market with a simpler accounting and tax management software than Quickbooks. They started selling their online accounting software to small businesses, but eventually they returned to their original vision to build embedded (white label) accounting that works inside other software. Hurdlr has grown steadily and has served over 1.3 million small businesses in its 13-year history. Raj invested his own money for many years and a little outside investment. The company is now “lifetime profitable” and growing quickly with 25 employees. Raj loves his work and has no intention of selling the business anytime soon. Quote from Raj Bhaskar, cofounder and CEO of Hurdlr “I ran my previous software business for 10 years before I sold it. And Hurdlr is now over 10 years old. These days, I’m talking about the next 10 years and the next 10 years after that. The next decade and two decades from now, because it’s relevant and because I think we’re just getting started. “I’ve seen inflection points in markets, and our market is finally ready. That’s the part we didn’t have any control over. So, in my view, there is no finish line. This is the starting line where we now have all these assets and need to let more people know we exist. “It’s crazy to say after 10 years that this is just the beginning. So I could say probably 20 years from now, looking backward, OK, these are the phases, but I’m in new territory and I know this will be a sustainable and growing business for a long time.” Links Raj Bhaskar on LinkedIn Hurdlr on LinkedIn Hurdlr website Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#121: Avoided a VC Round Using Royalty-Based Funding With No Equity Dilution – Vince Hsieh 1:05:36

22 weeks ago1:05:36

1:05:36

Vince Hsieh is a two-time entrepreneur who has started, grown, and sold two industrial tech companies that included software and either an RFID or GPS device in the solutions. His second venture, Geoforce, raised a non-dilutive funding round to accelerate global growth before being successfully acquired by private equity investors LLR Partners in 2019. Their royalty-based funding round allowed Geoforce to skip a VC funding round, preserving founder equity and fueling their growth. After their acquisition, Vince shares that the founders saved tens of millions of dollars in founder equity value with their non-dilutive funding from Cypress Growth Capital . Vince eventually joined Cypress as a general partner, working with capital-efficient SaaS founders to help them build more enterprise value. Vince shares how royalty-based funding can be a very useful funding approach in specific situations. Quote from Vince Hsieh, partner at Cypress Growth Capital "Skipping a VC found by using non-dilutive funding made a huge difference to us at Geoforce, especially compared to my first startup where we did not have royalty-based funding in the middle from Cypress. We had just venture capital and then eventually sold to private equity. "So the math of royalty-based funding is amazing because from the time of our funding from Cypress to the time we sold to private equity, our equity, our value more than 10x'd. But we didn't pay back Cyprus anything close to 10X. "Had we raised several million dollars in VC funding with equity, there would have been easily tens of millions of dollars of difference between having done royalty-based funding and equity funding. And that tens of millions of dollars of difference went into our shareholders' pockets, including the founders and our friends and families who invested earlier." Links Vince Hsieh on LinkedIn Cypress Growth Capital on LinkedIn Cypress Growth Capital website Geoforce website Podcast Sponsor – Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#120: Practical Founder Exits for $300 Million Cash with Identity Verification Platform – Bill Spruill 1:03:51

23 weeks ago1:03:51

1:03:51

Bill Spruill had a successful sales and executive career with two exits before he and his cofounder struck out on their own in the location verification market serving financial and e-commerce companies. Sales grew slowly for several years as they scraped by and kept going. Eventually, they pivoted the company to focus on identity verification and know-your-customer (KYC) with a new approach, and sales grew steadily every month. Global Data Consortium (GDC) partnered with data providers and fintech companies who became loyal customers, trusted partners, and potential acquirers. The company grew over 100% for several years, acquiring new partners and adding experienced leaders to their small team. In 2022, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) acquired GDC for $300 million in an all-cash deal. Bill talks about the lessons he learned in their patient growth journey, the challenges of trying and failing to raise startup capital, their frugal focus, their incredible acquisition story, and what he is doing now as a successful former founder. Quote from Bill Spruill, founder of Global Data Consortium (GDC) “There was a low point in the business where we were just struggling with, Why are we doing this? Are we going to make it? So we stepped back and said, We’re gonna do something very simple. We’re gonna focus on 10% growth every month, which wasn’t a big number then. “We focused on moving the needle 10% every month with revenue. And then you get into the power of compounding. Every month we moved it 10% and we would celebrate. We kept moving that needle 10%, 10%, 10%. “Eventually, that number got to be very sizable where we cracked through $5 million in revenue and we paid off all of our debt. And we became profitable and we kept growing fast. That unleashed the ability to accelerate our growth, growing 100% a year as we got bigger.” Links Bill Spruill on LinkedIn Global Data Consortium (GDC) on LinkedIn Global Data Consortium (GDC) website, now called LSEG Risk Intelligence London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) website Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com/newsletter.…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#119: Growing His Third Side Gig SaaS Venture After Selling His First Two – Troy Munson 1:03:48

24 weeks ago1:03:48

1:03:48

Troy Munson has been a successful enterprise SaaS sales rep for several years, but he wanted more control over his life—and eventual financial independence. So he launched his own small startup on the side. He learned a lot and sold it before launching his second side gig software company, which he sold for a little bit more. He started his third side-gig startup, Dimmo , in 2023 to allow enterprise software buyers to watch product demos without talking to sales reps. With the help of co-founders, Dimmo is now live and revenues are growing fast. With a little angel funding, Troy was able to go full-time to make Dimmo successful quickly. Troy is a fast-start SaaS founder, testing ideas and launching companies when traction starts. He and his cofounders don’t think about running this forever, but they do want to create a valuable company and achieve financial independence as successful practical founders. Quote from Troy Munson, CEO of Dimmo "I'm like this fast-starter person. I built Vocul and Refurl, my first two side gigs, from an immediate thought: This is annoying, this should be solved. Let me solve it, let me sell it. And then let me see if there's any interest. "With Dimmo, I just wanted to create extra income on the side. The hope for Dimmo was to pay my mortgage with a side gig. I knew software buyers just wanted to watch software demos. So let's just make it like a YouTube for software demos and then we'll just take some sort of revenue. "It blew up on LinkedIn when we launched and grew faster than expected. I had to go full-time and I'm so happy I did. It feels great. I hope I never go back to the side gig guy. I also hope I never go back to any sort of any sort of W-2 work. I'm buying my freedom." Links Troy Munson on LinkedIn Dimmo on LinkedIn Dimmo.ai website Podcast Sponsor - Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com .…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#118: The Silent PLG Killers: Why Smart Founders Fail at Product-Led Growth - Wes Bush 1:04:23

25 weeks ago1:04:23

1:04:23

Wes Bush is CEO of ProductLed , a coaching and education company that has helped almost 500 serious SaaS founders to succeed with product-led growth strategies, tactics, and execution. These include freemium products and free trials, where the product itself creates the awareness, engagement, and enthusiasm to buy before any human intervention (aka “the required sales demo”). Wes has written two successful books, Product-Led Growth and The Product-Led Playbook , describing key ideas, frameworks, approaches, and examples for SaaS founders. In this expert episode, Wes shares his expertise for SaaS founders, including these topics: Defining product-led growth Transitioning from sales-led to product-led Common mistakes in product-led growth Identifying challenges and solutions for user experience Pricing strategies in product-led growth The future of product-led growth in SaaS Quote from Wes Bush, CEO of ProductLed “The PLG model you choose doesn’t matter. Not a bit. Freemium, free trial, credit card up front, whatever. You can make any of those work. That’s not the question. What matters in PLG is the actual outcome that we hope somebody will get from our product-led experience? “Does your free motion actually have a transformation in it where they can feel they will grow bigger, save time, and do cool stuff? Because if you don’t have that, it’s literally just, “Hey, look around, see for yourself, see what you can do in this product. That’s not real value.” “What is your PLG outcome that creates that transformation for the user? There has to be tangible value for the user before they ever consider buying. That’s what customers want when they buy software now–Show me value first before I think about buying from you.” Links Wes Bush on LinkedIn ProductLed on LinkedIn ProductLed website Free Product-Led Growth book Free Product-Led Growth audio book The Product-Led Playbook book The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com .…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#117: Bootstrapped to 9 Figure Exit in Online Education for Real Estate - Michael McAllister 1:18:14

26 weeks ago1:18:14

1:18:14

Michael McAllister is the founder and former CEO of The CE Shop , the leading provider of pre-licensing and continuing education for real estate professionals in the U.S. Michael started The CE Shop in 2005 by distributing existing training materials from a continuing education provider. They quickly created their own online education solution and proceeded to expand with specific content and compliance elements for each state. The CE Shop grew steadily without outside funding for 15 years by building a 5-star team, adding partner channels, expanding to new states, and providing more content for the pre-licensing of new real estate agents. The company grew to over 130 employees and expanded faster during COVID. Michael successfully sold the company to private equity investors in 2020 for a “9-figure exit,” meaning more than $100 million, to Waud Capital. On this podcast, Michael shares the realities of their growth journey, including their special emphasis on culture, people, and practical expansion as a bootstrapped technology business. Podcast Sponsor – Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. Quote from Michael McAllister, Founder of the CE Shop “When founders sell their companies, I'd suggest they need to do it when they hold all the cards. During our first experience with a serious potential buyer, we asked for a lot of information about their business. It was reverse due diligence since I’d be the biggest private investor in their company. “We were two weeks before closing, and I called our banker and said, this is really frustrating that we’re asking for all this information and not getting it back. Unless we do, we may need to pull the plug on this deal. We held all the cards. We had a great business. We didn’t need to sell like we were completely in the driver’s seat. “It was really difficult but we decided to pull the plug on the deal. The biggest thing was that there was a real mismatch in core values. Our core values were foundational to who we were and who we are as a company. One of them was doing what we said we’d do. And it was a $100 million question. It was a big deal. “ Links Michael McAllister on LinkedIn The CE Shop on LinkedIn The CE Shop website Waud Capital website (acquirer) The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com .…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#116: The Do’s and Don’ts of Adding Offshore Software Development Talent – Matt Watson 55:34

27 weeks ago55:34

55:34

Last year I interviewed three-time software founder Matt Watson on this podcast about his successful practical founder journeys. Matt leveraged offshore software development talent in his last two SaaS companies to staff up quickly and grow efficiently. His top developers and designers were offshore in the Philippines, but they weren’t one-off contractors or difficult-to-manage outsourced agencies. He found an endless supply of top tech talent who became savvy members of his team, working hard every day to get things done fast. So, for his fourth venture, Matt created Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who augment and extend your core dev team. In this expert session with a Practical Founders Podcast sponsor, Matt shares what works and doesn’t work for practical SaaS founders who want to offshore some or all of their software development. Links Matt Watson on LinkedIn Full Scale on LinkedIn Full Scale website Startup Hustle podcast Product Driven video channel The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com .…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#115: The SaaS Startup Success Where “Build It And They Will Come” Actually Worked – Quickli 1:00:12

29 weeks ago1:00:12

1:00:12

Eric Dill was a successful mortgage broker in Sydney, Australia, who struggled with the same painful problem as every other broker: manually checking with multiple banks to validate and price mortgages for homeowners. Eric and his good friend Angus Keatinge resolved to create a software product to solve this complicated and chronic problem. Quickli was launched in late 2021 and it immediately gained happy customers and fans without any proactive marketing or sales. Three years later, more than 10,000 mortgage brokers use Quickli every week—that's over 50% market share. Quickli has AUD $5 million in ARR with 40 employees. This is an amazing story of two product-focused entrepreneurs who solved a difficult problem and grew a successful software company without any outside funding. Quickli still has almost no marketing staff and no salespeople. Most of their employees are engineers working on the product and customer service. Quote from Eric Dill, cofounder and co-CEO of Quickli “We just cracked the $5 million ARR figure in just three years, which is a big milestone for us. We have 10,000 brokers on the platform, which is over 50% of the total market in Australia. We also have 40 employees, mostly in engineering. “It’s been very, very much a story of product-led growth. Our product completely solves the biggest problem that every broker has every day. No other product has solved it. Brokers have been telling each other about Quickli, and we have some really big fans. It’s a very tight community of brokers who help each other. ‘How lucky did we get? Because we didn’t do anything. Almost marketing and no sales. We have a website. To say we have half a marketing person feels like an overstatement because we have a customer service person who also does some marketing on the side for us.” Links Angus Keatinge on LinkedIn Eric Dill on LinkedIn Quickli on Linkedin Quickli website Podcast Sponsor – Cypress Growth Capital This week’s podcast is sponsored by my friends at Cypress Growth Capital . For 15 years, Cypress has provided non-dilutive growth funding to bootstrapped SaaS founders, including many successful founders I’ve interviewed here on this podcast. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com .…

Practical Founders Podcast

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#114: Practical Founder Plays to Win Among Giant Partners and Competitors – Guy Rubin 57:57

30 weeks ago57:57

57:57

Guy Rubin is the co-founder and CEO of ebsta , a revenue intelligence platform that works with Salesforce and Hubspot to automatically analyze existing data to improve sales performance. Started in London in 2012, ebsta found success in the early days of the Salesforce marketplace and addon economy as a data tool integrated with customer emails. ebsta has since become a complete revenue intelligence platform, serving sales teams with 10-100 sales reps. With 400 customers, 30 employees, and no VC funding, ebsta competes with a focused approach to play in the massive Salesforce ecosystem and against huge competitors. Guy talks about their many pivots, running the business with his wife as cofounder, and the benefits and challenges of not being in San Francisco with VC funding. With deep data across thousands of sales reps, ebsta publishes an annual ebsta Sales Benchmark Report with specific data about close rates, quota attainment, and data-driven factors to improve sales performance. Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale , one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. Quote from Guy Rubin, CEO of ebsta “We found ourselves in a place where we had some amazingly talented, very driven, very focused doers, and they were happy to work together as a common goal and get stuff done. “What moved the bar for me as the CEO was bringing on board advisors. I’ve now got four board advisors and a chairman sitting around me. We also brought on a CTO, CPO, and CFO, who are very experienced. “So bring in those experts around you, people independent of those doing the doing. Don’t get me wrong; you need the doers. They’re absolutely vital, but I also needed experts to help me at the running stage. “That was the best thing I ever did: bringing those expert advisors in. And if you’re small, I would encourage founders to ask different people to be advisors to give you an outside perspective. You’d be surprised if people love being asked for help and ask you some difficult questions.” Links Guy Rubin on LinkedIn ebsta on LinkedIn ebsta website 2024 ebsta SaaS Sales Benchmarks Report The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com .…

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#113: Grew and Sold a Simulation Learning Platform for Higher Education - Stu Draper 1:08:09

31 weeks ago1:08:09