Practical Founders

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. https://lnkd.in/gwBE4QPD

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—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. https://lnkd.in/gC_J2MaJ

My guest on the Practical Founders Podcast this week is Guy Rubin, 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. https://lnkd.in/gE_D4Asa

Ian Manners was a successful consultant for pharmaceutical companies in the US when he discovered a major problem that needed a software solution. Big pharma companies provide financial assistance funding for patients who require their drugs but need help with high costs, but these funds are difficult to access and manage for patients and healthcare providers. Ian and his cofounder created Vivor in 2014 to connect this financial assistance funding to patients through healthcare providers like hospitals, medical offices, and healthcare networks. The bootstrapped software startup grew slowly at first but eventually became profitable as it scaled up. Since its inception, Vivor has helped over 100,000 patients receive over $2 billion in financial assistance to offset the high costs of prescriptions. During the COVID crisis that hit the US healthcare industry, Ian decided to merge Vivor with TailorMed, a VC-funded competitor, in a cash and stock deal. He stayed on for two years during the transition and is now looking for his next entrepreneurial adventure in healthcare software. https://lnkd.in/gm-XN7u4

Esben Friis-Jensen and his cofounder, Sebastian Seilund, teamed up in 2021 to create Userflow, a no-code user onboarding product for SaaS companies. This week, it was announced that Userflow has been acquired by Beamer, a maker of product user engagement software that uses product-led growth strategies like Userflow. Userflow is profitable and growing, with over $4.6 million in ARR, 700+ customers, and just three employees with no outside funding. TechCrunch reported that Userflow was acquired in a $60 million deal, supported by Beamer investors Camber Partners and other investors. Esben told the Userflow story on the Practical Founders Podcast in episode 42 last year. This is an update about the recent acquisition and his thinking behind selling the company.  https://lnkd.in/gEJtNAM3

Antony Ceravolo is a successful two-time startup founder from Adelaide, South Australia. He started his career in investment banking but left in 2002 to start a DVD rental business in London that raised funding from big VCs and Amazon. It grew into Lovefilm.com, which was later acquired by Amazon in 2011 to become part of their movie streaming service. He moved back to Adelaide and started Sine in 2013 to help schools, businesses, and large office buildings manage guest sign-ins more securely using iPads at their front desks. They also started tracking visiting contractors and vendors with their mobile app, allowing automatic check-ins and tracking for operations managers.  Sine grew quickly with global customers and large deals, eventually gro@wing to 100 employees, mostly in Adelaide, with no VC funding or institutional investors. Sine was acquired by Honeywell in 2020 and became a critical product in their property management technology suite. Antony speaks openly about the benefits and challenges of working with institutional investors and why he avoided raising VC funding with Sine. https://lnkd.in/gnedWtt6