If you have been putting off moving forward with your own startup venture due to a lack of financing, please listen to this series of podcast interviews with some successful startup founders who managed to bootstrap their businesses to millions in revenue. Each of these 30-minute interviews tells the inspiring story of how they did it.
Girish Navani, CEO at eClinicalWorks – Bootstrapped a billion dollar Unicorn with a paycheck. Girish didn’t quit his job for two years, while he tested and validated his original product and customer base. He now has built a $300 million revenue company that is still 100% bootstrapped, private, and has no desire to sell out or go for an IPO.
Raj De Datta, Co-founder and CEO, BloomReach – Bootstrapped the company to over $5 million in revenue before raising its first financing. Raj speaks of sensible fundamentals as opposed to irrational exuberance around Unicorn mania.
Greg Gianforte, Founder and CEO, RightNow Technologies – Took the company public, and later sold it to Oracle for $1.5 billion. He made an unorthodox choice of building the company mainly in Montana. Today, RightNow (now Oracle) is one of Montana’s largest employers.
Jason Cohen, Founder of WP Engine – Has bootstrapped four companies, and with the most recent one, he bootstrapped first, and then raised substantial money. Jason shares what he has learned across all his ventures.
Fred Guelen, CFO and President of North America at Planon Group – Along with his brother, Fred has built Planon to over $100 million in revenue from the Netherlands. This is a very encouraging discussion for our global entrepreneurs.
Heidi Jannenga, Co-founder and President, WebPT – Yet another scrappy entrepreneur who managed to bootstrap to over $1M ARR and THEN raised the first million in angel funding. Heidi’s company has crossed $40 million in revenue and has sold a portion of its equity to private equity.
Blaine Vess, Co-founder of StudyMode – Discusses how he made multiple business model shifts, and eventually scaled his company to $20 million in revenue with a sub 1% freemium conversion rate.
Therese Tucker, Founder and CEO, BlackLine – A very successful female entrepreneur who followed our core philosophy of bootstrap first, raise money later. When I first met her in 2009, her company was in the $10 million revenue range. Subsequently, it has continued to grow at 50% CAGR year over year, and Therese raised private equity funding in 2013 to take liquidity for herself and her team. The company has since gone public at a Unicorn valuation.
Dan Dillon, Owner at Cleanitsupply.com – Shares his wonderful story of building a niche e-commerce business with just $50,000 of personal money to $11 million in annual revenue in 2016.
Jana Francis, Founder and President, Steals.com – Has experienced significant challenges in building her bootstrapped company from Utah. She candidly discusses these challenges, and her experiences are eye-opening and inspiring.