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PODCAST

Practical Founders Podcast

Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast with host Greg Head for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies--without big funding.

business entrepreneurship

All Episodes

49:59

#38: Spinout SaaS platform for real estate brokerages...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/03/24

Windermere Real Estate is a large and well-known residential real estate broker in the Seattle area. In the late 1990s, they invested to build an internal software system to power their own business and differentiate their services. After using and improving their software for over 10 years, the family owners of Windermere spun out the software as a new company called MoxiWorks. They hired experienced tech entrepreneur and marketer York Baur to lead the new MoxiWorks business as CEO in 2012. After

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57:27

#37: Bootstrapped for 10 years and sold ProfitWell...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/03/16

Patrick Campbell wasn't expecting to be an entrepreneur when he grew up, but after his first few jobs, he struck out on his own in 2012 to create a software company to help SaaS businesses optimize their pricing. Price Intelligently quickly evolved into a tech-enabled service that allowed him to grow, build a team, and ultimately launch ProfitWell. ProfitWell is a free and powerful SaaS metrics product that automatically calculates MRR, ARR, churn, and other import financial measures for SaaS and

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01:11:43

#36: His first company had big VC funding, but not...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/03/10

Jon Nordmark founded eBags.com in 1998 as one of the first Internet e-commerce companies and grew it into the largest online retailer of luggage, bags, and travel accessories. Jon was previously a successful corporate executive who led marketing for Samsonite. eBags raised $30 million of VC funding in 1999 and survived the dot-com boom and the 2001 bust era, but the crazy growth expectations of VC investors often felt misaligned with the profitable growth path of the company and the market

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01:01:14

#35: From website designer to industry SaaS platform...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/03/03

Perry Rosenbloom moved to Boulder, Colorado in 2011 and started a small business offering digital marketing and custom website services. After building a website for his mother-in-law, an independent therapist, Perry created a scrappy subscription-based website builder platform to make websites for other behavioral health professionals. The Brighter Vision company grew steadily and efficiently without big outside funding and eventually provided custom mobile-ready websites and marketing tools to

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51:53

#34: Sold his tech services company to invest in big...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/02/24

Gopal Krishnamurthy was an early BI and data analytics expert working for a large company when he left to start a BI consulting company called Visual BI in 2010. Visual BI grew to over 300 employees serving enterprise customers as an evangelist to push emerging Data & Analytics trends with SAP HANA, SAP Lumira, SAP Analytics Cloud, Snowflake, DBT, and Microsoft Power BI. They also created several add-on products, which Gopal and his partner Jay retained when he sold the Visual BI consulting company

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01:03:12

#33: Bootstrapped a leading CRM for auto dealers that...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/02/17

Matt Watson was a two-time software company with two successful exits before he was 40 years old. He started his first company, VinSolutions, in his basement in Kansas City in 2006. VinSolutions started by helping auto dealers upload photos of their cars to sell in the popular Autotrader catalog and website. Matt was the first developer and product visionary who lead a team that build their popular CRM and lead management system to help those dealers manage internet leads and sell cars faster. Their

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53:28

#32: From her kitchen table to global HR employee...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/02/10

Deb Muller was an experienced HR executive at a large global company who left her job to start a consultancy specializing in managing important employee incident investigations. Surprisingly, her customers asked her for a software solution that included her best practices, so she mocked up some screens and had someone build the first version in 2009. She started selling it to fellow HR leaders and her software company HR Acuity was born. Professional management of employee incident investigations

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58:05

#31: Bootstrapped to $30 million and still growing...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/02/03

Vivek Bhaskaran was a computer science student in college who worked on an online survey tool for a professor in the marketing department. After school, he built a new survey tool with a fellow software developer while they still held their day jobs. QuestionPro grew slowly and profitably with efficient search engine optimization and viral marketing, avoiding the need to raise any money from outside investors. QuestionPro grew steadily by expanding the product with more powerful features for larger

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52:34

#30: Bootstrapped IT mgt. software to over $10...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/01/27

Scott McCausland was an experienced software sales leader who decided to go out on his own in 2008 to build a new software business. His technical cofounder built the first version of their new software and Scott started selling it. MVP Systems Software was underway without any outside funding. They kept adding name-brand customers who used their JAMS workload automation and scheduling software in their IT departments for a variety of scheduling and automation tasks that saved time and money. It

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59:26

#29: Mobile app developer created a software platform...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/01/20

Oliver Palmer helped start a mobile app development agency in Sydney, Australia that built simple apps for early mobile phones. When the iPhone launched, Tigerspike grew very fast by creating branded mobile apps for large companies with its high-end design and development services. Tigerspike also created its own software product—a mobile application development platform with subscription fees—to try to transition into a product-based company to grow faster with VC funding. This was difficult as

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59:15

#28: Bootstrapped B2B SaaS company in India serving...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/01/13

Sandeep Kumar quit his job working for an Indian consulting company to start a software company in 2005 when product-focused startups were not common in India. For the next 10 years, they experimented with product features and customer profiles until they finally found an important buyer with budget power who needed their must-have software. ProductDossier is now a comprehensive platform for enterprise consulting and IT services companies in India to manage project financials, project resources,

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55:16

#27: Bootstrapped to over $3M ARR with software for...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2023/01/06

Sarah Hum studied graphic design at university before she discovered she loved to help software startups create new products. She moved to Silicon Valley to work at Facebook as a product designer, but a side project helped her find a problem she wanted to solve. So she quit her job and built an initial software product called Canny with her technical cofounder while traveling the world together as nomading entrepreneurs. Within a year, Canny created enough revenue for them to live and travel

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50:40

#26: His SaaS business is scaling fast by helping...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/12/30

Mark Abbott was an active investor and board member for 20 years when he realized that most of the 100+ companies he helped were not good a their “business fundamentals.” The fundamentals of setting long-term goals, making short-term plans, and then aligning teams and individuals to make efficient progress. He thought of writing a book but discovered the book “Traction” by Gino Wickman and his branded EOS® (Entrepreneurial Operating System) system. Mark worked with his cofounders in 2016 to create

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01:01:38

#25: Bootstrapped a global SaaS business in Scotland...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/12/16

Craig Letton quit his corporate sales job in 2011 to take over his parents’ small printing business in Scotland. It was his first time running a business and he learned hard business lessons quickly. Eventually, he discovered a huge need for custom-printed promotional materials by frontline salespeople in the global drinks and beverage industry. He sold their printing equipment to focus just on the software to solve this tricky problem for those salespeople, marketing departments, and regional

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48:54

#24: Bootstrapped event registration platform for...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/12/09

Jeff Matlow is a serial entrepreneur and a crazy triathlete and a long-distance runner who found a way to put those passions together in a software startup that grew up fast. He saw an opportunity to create a better registration experience for endurance events like 5Ks, marathons, and triathlons. In 2008, he sold the big deal to USA Triathlon and set out to build the website and registration platform he envisioned. The company I Am Athlete (now called imATHLETE) went live with their platform and

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56:14

#23: Creating massive impact with a specialized...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/12/02

Howard Gottlieb created and sold several businesses before starting a school fundraising website in 2003 called Easy Fundraising Ideas. It grew into the most popular Internet website for school fundraisers. He experimented with many business models and ideas while the fundraising industry still wasn’t changing or growing. In 2012, Howard started Read-a-Thon as a literacy-based fundraising platform that helped students raise money while boosting education. Their easy platform and simple fundraising

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58:04

#22: Grew a niche vertical startup into a global...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/11/25

Scott Pickard didn’t know he was embarking on a 15-year software entrepreneurial journey when he signed on to manage a horse veterinary practice in Calgary, Canada. But they had built some internal software to help them manage their large practice that drastically improved their business results. Soon other horse vets wanted their HVMS software and the Business Infusions software business was created with Scott leading the small team. Business Infusions grew steadily without big budgets, big

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47:26

#21: Bootstrapped in Australia then moved to the US...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/11/18

Josh Cameron and three university friends started a scrappy software company in Brisbane Australia just after graduating. They had run the popular college bar where they discovered there was no simple software solution to track, onboard, and schedule hourly employees. They started Tanda in 2012 and it grew into a successful workforce management software company in Australia —without any outside funding. The four founders moved to Chicago in 2019 to expand their North American business. Their product

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57:19

#20: Grew on-demand marketplace out of a search...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/11/11

Joe Griffin recently left his job of 8 years as co-CEO of ClearVoice, a company that he and co-founder Jay Swanson started in 2014 out of their digital marketing agency business in Phoenix, Arizona. ClearVoice was acquired by Fiverr in 2019 and has been operating as an independent subsidiary since then. Fiverr is now a large public company with a global reach. ClearVoice was created in the fast-changing web search marketing industry in 2014 out of the need from larger companies for high-quality

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51:18

#19: Practical VC seed investor explains the...

Practical Founders Podcast ·

2022/10/28

John Francis is a general partner at Stout Street Capital, a venture capital fund based in Denver, Colorado. Stout Street has made 70 small seed and pre-seed investments in software startups outside the big tech centers in North America. Unlike big Silicon Valley VCs, almost half of Stout Street's investments are in practical startups that have reasonable valuations, sustainable growth models, and won’t need more outside investment before they exit. In this in-depth interview with a

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178 results

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