Nine months of runway. No investors. No safety net. Patrick Campbell cashed out his 401k to build a bootstrapped SaaS that would eventually sell for $200 million. In this episode, founders will learn how Patrick beat venture-backed competitors with a counterintuitive free product strategy.
Patrick Campbell shares why he made ProfitWell's analytics product free while Baremetrics and ChartMogul raised millions, how services revenue funded two years of product development, and why bringing on part-time co-founders created four years of conflict and distrust.
ProfitWell was acquired by Paddle for $200 million in 2022. Patrick Campbell grew the bootstrapped SaaS to 8-figures ARR and nearly 90 employees, capturing 30,000 companies—all without raising venture capital.
🔑 Key Lessons
- 💰 Bootstrapped SaaS can beat venture-backed competitors: By focusing on accuracy over features and making ProfitWell free, Patrick captured 30,000 companies while competitors raised millions.
- 🎯 Freemium only works if free is better than paid: Patrick's philosophy: if your free product isn't at parity with paid competition, freemium won't work.
- ⚠️ Never bring on part-time co-founders: Patrick spent four years in conflict with co-founders who never fully committed. Fix equity conversations early and directly.
- 📉 Use services revenue to fund product development: Price Intelligently's consulting margins funded two years of building the free analytics product.
- 🛠️ Build automatic products requiring zero configuration: ProfitWell's Retain handles payment failures without users becoming experts.
- 🚀 Video content transforms brand recognition: Adding video to blog posts changed ProfitWell from a content company to a recognized brand.
Chapters
- Introduction and ProfitWell overview
- Company size and Paddle acquisition details
- How the $200M acquisition came about
- Patrick Campbell's origin story and cashing out his 401k
- Price Intelligently vs ProfitWell naming
- Building the first version of the product
- The 9-month personal runway challenge
- Competing against venture-backed competitors
- How the free product generated revenue
- The part-time co-founder mistake
- Did co-founders ever come on full-time?
- Learning to let go of resentment
- Being diagnosed with cancer twice
- The founder's way of handling adversity
- Key growth drivers over the last 5 years
- Why bootstrapped SaaS people challenges differ from funded startups
- What's next at Paddle
- Lightning round
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