The Startup Heroes Podcast

Josh founded product discovery platform StackCommerce, growing it to $80M in revenue off only $1M in investment. These days he's at it again, with his new company Onward - tripling to $6M in ARR this year already. We caught up with Josh today to discuss bootstrapping, life as a founder, and angel investing.

Hillel Zidel is the co-managing partner of Kennet Partners - a growth equity fund founded in 1997, that exclusively focuses on backing bootstrapped software businesses at the growth stage. Kennet is an absolute juggernaut in their space, with $1B AUM and 5 deployed fund vintages under their belt. We caught up with Hillel to find out more about Kennet's outlook on venture investing, the lessons they've learned over the years, and put to rest many of the common misconceptions around bootstrap investing.

Many know Alex Macdonald as a successful investor and exited founder. What you might not know, is that these successes were the compounding result of lessons learnt during his early career in the turnarounds space - where he was responsible for rescuing distressed companies and returning them to profitability. Applications of these lessons are visible across his career - notably in his decision to pivot his venture-backed business, Velocity Black, in pursuit of building something self-sustaining and cashflow positive. That decision proved to be a good one, resulting in their acquisition in 2023 for a reported $300M. Alex joined us to talk through his impressive career and the maxims that shape his thinking. He also shares a trove of advice for founders building right now.

Dirk Sahlmer is the Head of Origination at SaaS Group - a holding company which acquires Bootstrapped SaaS businesses between $1-10M ARR, giving founders the opportunity to exit. They currently have 17 portfolio companies with a combined $50M in ARR. Dirk took the time to share some of his insights on the SaaS market and what it takes to sell your business.

Its a rare opportunity to speak with someone who has seen the business world through so many different frames. Anna Talerico has acted as a bootstrapped founder, partner at a venture capital firm, a professional executive, and has overseen multiple acquisitions along the way. We learnt a ton from Anna, and we're sure you will to.

Most venture-backed startups never crack $1M/y in revenue. A few manage to get past $10M, and only a small handful hit $100M. Beyond that, we're talking about a tiny group of world-class founders. Mike Salguero is firmly in that group. ButcherBox generates $600m/y in revenue - the crazy part is, he's done it without raising a cent of venture capital. We caught up with Mike to chat about the early days of ButcherBox, growth strategies, and many of his personal philosophies when it comes to company building.

Augustin is a serial entrepreneur who has built companies within e-commerce, search, and SaaS. His most recent company was a predictive maintenance platform with a mission of disrupting a massive industry you might not have thought about before - elevators. Uptime raised over €9m, and had set Augustin and his team on a journey filled with ups, downs, and a particularly interesting end, which any founder out there building should listen to and learn from.

Adrian Schwager is the cofounder and CEO of Growth Assistant. She and her Co-founder, Jesse Pujji, have bootstrapped the business to $6m ARR within 21 months. We caught up with Adrian to discuss her background, the origins of the business, and some of the lessons she's learnt along the way.

Jordan is a principal at Atomic VC, a US-based venture studio, where she heads up the studios Web3 initiatives. She's also helped start and launch multiple companies at Atomic across Healthcare, Real Estate, Financial Services, consumer marketplaces, and co-created Atomic's Future Founders program to expand access to entrepreneurship.

Conor is the founder of CKS - an advisory firm focused on fundraising and M&A. Since 2020 alone, CKS has advised on over half a billion dollars in trade sales, and helped raise over $125m for their clients. Conor is also an active angel investor. He took the time to share some of his insights with us in this episode!

Gavin Cooney is the co-founder and CEO at Learnosity. He boostrapped the business to several millions in ARR before selling a portion of the company to a publicly traded company, and later to a private equity firm. He joined us today to share insights on finding product-market fit, secondary sales, and acquiring other busiensses.

Patrick Campbell is the founder and CEO at profitwell, which was acquired in May 2022 by paddle, for $200m. Profitwell makes revenue automation products for companies that reduce cancellations, optimise pricing, and give you revenue reporting. Patrick started the profitwell in 2012, and bootstrapped it right up until it's acquisition. We caught up with Patrick on getting acquired as a bootstrapped company, and more!

Bryce Roberts is a co-founder at OATV - one of the formative Seed funds. Their portfolio includes Bitly, Figma, and Foursquare. At OATV, Bryce ALSO developed Indie VC, probably the most high-profile example of a fund doing venture differently.

We're kicking off our new podcast with an exceptional guest! Building a successful company is hard, bootstrapping a successful company is harder. Repeating that process multiple times - thats a whole other Feat. Philip Joubert is a startup founder based in Cape Town, South Africa. He is the CEO and co-founder of OfferZen, a tech talent marketplace operating across Europe and Africa. Before OfferZen, he ran a venture builder with his brother, which helped create some of South Africa's most successful startups such as Luno, Snapscan, Journey Apps, and Pondering Panda.