Bootstrapping to Exit, Then Raise Money and Exit Again: Wendy CEO Lance Neuhauser (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I assume that since it was a services company, you were able to bootstrap it, right?

Lance Newhauser: Yes, it was a service company that we initially bootstrapped. We did bring on one investor who put a few thousand dollars into the company so that we could go get some office space and work in the same area. But this was very much a bootstrapped, service-oriented organization. Over time, we incorporated technology to offer differentiated services and improve operational efficiency, enabling us to stay price-competitive.  But we’re very much a bootstrapped service business, no doubt.

Sramana Mitra: Now, how did this company that spent $50 million on a campaign find you?

Bootstrapping to Exit, Then Raise Money and Exit Again: Wendy CEO Lance Neuhauser (Part 1)

Lance bootstrapped his first company to an exit. He venture funded his second company and exited after 10 years. He is about to launch his third. Read on, great story.

Bootstrapping Using Services from Pune: Mindbowser CEO Ayush Jain (Part 1)

Services companies are easy to bootstrap, but often, they grow slowly in the beginning. How do you accelerate? This discussion is about the levers of acceleration.

Best of Bootstrapping: Canadian Co-founder Brothers Bootstrapped to a $40M Exit

I always love Bootstrapping to Exit stories. AppArmor Co-founder Chris Sinkinson and his brother bootstrapped a wonderful startup and sold it for $40M. Read on for the nuances.

Sramana Mitra: All right, Chris, let’s start at the very beginning of your journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised? What kind of backgrounds?

Chris Sinkinson: I’m from a small town called Kingston in Canada located about halfway between Toronto and Montreal. Our parents had three boys. I was the oldest. I have a brother who’s three years younger than me, who’s a very successful researcher. He’s currently working for the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago. My youngest brother, David, is the one that I ended up starting my company with.

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Building a Portfolio of Bootstrapped Businesses: Ryan Millman, CEO of Undigital (Part 1)

Ryan has built a portfolio of bootstrapped businesses over the last 25 years that adds up to over $50M in revenue. He discusses the strategies and nuances, pivots and positioning, and more.

Bootstrapping to Exit and Bootstrapping Again (and Again): Adam Robinson, CEO of Retention.com and RB2B (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: So let’s go to the new one. What’s happening with the new one?

Adam Robinson: I wanted to scale up Retention.com, but I’d never done it before, so I was very insecure about it. I convinced Santosh Sharan to join us as our COO. He’d helped ZoomInfo grow from $8 million to $100 million ARR. He had helped this company Apollo.io turnaround from being stuck at $6 million ARR for five years to being valued at around a billion dollars in a Sequoia led round.

Best of Bootstrapping: Bootstrapped an IoT Company from NC

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

North Carolina, at one point, had a large concentration of cellular technology companies. Some of that talent then came together around IoT, including Bob Witter, CEO of Device Solutions. He shared his journey with me in 2016.

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

Bob Witter: I was born in Springville, New York. It’s in the western part of New York. I grew up in central New York. I went to school at State University of New York and graduated in 1981 with degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics. I started my career in Rochester with Eastman Kodak company in the medical products division that was brand new at that time. I learned a great deal about how to do medical products that has certainly served me well even today at Device Solutions.

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Bootstrapping to Exit and Bootstrapping Again (and Again): Adam Robinson, CEO of Retention.com and RB2B (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: Could you double click down and explain with a bit more color and depth exactly what it was that you were doing at Retention.com, which had a different name at that time. Explain the workflow, the value proposition, and the complexity of it.

Adam Robinson: The value proposition was that we can identify 35% of your web traffic and give you email addresses of people that don’t fill out forms.