Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services to a $300M+ Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Victor Allis bootstrapped Quintiq to $30M, raised funding, and then sold the company for over $300M. ActiVote is his second startup, currently self-funded.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start from the beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Victor Allis: I was born in the Netherlands to a middle-class family. My dad worked as a plant manager in the aircraft industry. My mom took care of five kids. I was the youngest of five with four sisters. In school, I was the second-best in math in the Netherlands. I took part in competitions. I became a math student with the dream of becoming a math professor.

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The Power of Bootstrapping: Achieving Small Exits for Capital-Efficient Startups

I’m a big advocate for building small, capital-efficient startups. Not all entrepreneurs need to chase Unicorns. Not all investors need to chase Unicorns. There are many more viable ideas for those smaller ventures and there are considerably more opportunities for their exits, which means cashing in earlier on your hard work.

One type of exit is under $50 million, and to achieve that, your strategy should be to build a capital-efficient company that shows product-market fit in an efficient, bootstrapped manner.

That capital-efficient strategy is required for all stakeholders to make money when harvesting through smaller exits.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped an E-commerce Startup with a Paycheck to Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

There are roll-ups of e-commerce brands going on right now. This case study delves into one such that has exited into a roll-up effort.

Jay Perkins, Co-founder of Kettlebell Kings, currently runs Living.Fit which produces digital workouts, fitness education courses, and fitness equipment.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Jay Perkins: I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. In 2004, I moved to Austin, Texas to go to college at the University of Texas. Pretty soon after arriving in Austin, I just fell in love with it. I felt like this was an incredible place to be in.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to an “Inc. 500” Company in Four Years

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Co-founder CEO Chris Farrell bootstrapped Tallie to a high growth Inc. 500 company in four years. After that, the product had to be re-architected, and slowed down for a couple of years, before picking up again. Read how they competed in a crowded marketplace and built a robust position. After we spoke in 2014, Tallie became a part of Emburse in 2017.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born and raised, and in what kind of background?

Chris Farrell: I was born in San Francisco. I was basically born and raised in the Bay Area, mostly down on the peninsula. I got my start in my career with Arthur Andersen as an accountant. Then I worked my way up through the accounting ranks and eventually was a Controller of a public company and a CFO of a public company. Along the way, having been steeped in technology in the Bay Area, I set out on the latest part of my journey, which is running a software company.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using Services to Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Krish Kupathil is the Founder of Mobiliya Technologies. When we spoke in 2013, the company was known as AgreeYa Mobility, an enterprise mobility and mobile system integration company providing solutions for collaboration and communication products for mobile platforms. QuEST Global acquired Mobiliya in 2018.

Sramana: Krish, let’s start with your personal story. Where are you from? What is the story to your personal journey?

Krish Kupathil: I was born and brought up in Delhi, India. I did my schooling and college in India. I started dabbling in software in 1987 and did some initial work in India. I got into software related businesses surrounding finance. I did some work out of Europe and Singapore before landing in the U.S. ten years ago. I was involved in a few startups in earlier years as well.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped to $12M+ and Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Aaron Fulkerson Founded MindTouch, a company that offers a cloud-based self-service help center and knowledge-as-a-service platform. He grew the business to eight figures as a bootstrapped company with no venture, no debt. The company was sold to Nice Systems in April 2021. Here is our conversation from 2013.

Sramana: Aaron, tell us where you are from and a bit about your background. What are the roots of your entrepreneurial story?

Aaron Fulkerson: I grew up in a small town south of San Jose, California. Back then it was very rural and was still a farming community. At the same time, Silicon Valley was starting to blossom. In the 1980s, as a kid, I would dial into bulletin board services. I also wrote quite a bit of code. I did all of this from the farm I was growing up on.

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Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped Using a Paycheck to Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.

Bootstrapping using a paycheck is still a real trend. Here’s the case study of Axosoft shared by Founder Hamid Shojaee in 2014. The company was purchased in 2020 by Resurgens Technology Partners.

Sramana Mitra: Hamid, tell us a bit about yourself. Where were you born and raised and in what kind of background?

Hamid Shojaee: I was born and raised in Iran. I was 10 years old when we moved to the United States.

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Best of Bootstrapping: From Friends and Family Funding to a $30 Million Exit

If you haven’t already, please study our free Bootstrapping course and the Investor Introductions page.

It is important not to lose sight of the capital-efficient, bootstrapped or minimally capitalized companies that have achieved success, provided significant return on investment to their stakeholders, and built value for their customers. VerticalResponse Founder Janine Popick shared her wonderful story with me in 2015.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start with some of your background. Where are you from? Where did you grow up?

Janine Popick: I grew up in a small town called Wingdale, New York. It’s about an hour and 40 minutes north of Manhattan. It’s pretty rural. My dad was an engineer for IBM for 35 years. My mom was a nurse. I went to public school and had a great education, but I really felt the need to get closer to Manhattan. I went to Hofstra University, which is about half hour away from Manhattan. I studied Communications and frankly, wanted to be in television behind the scene either writing, producing, or directing. My first job out of college was with WCBS TV and I was in sales and a little bit of marketing. I realized that that was not what I really wanted to do. I quickly left and took a job as a salesperson selling newspaper space in Brooklyn for a local community newspaper. I decided that after I was in sales, I was going into direct marketing. I did lots of direct mail for small direct marketing agencies in New York.

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