Eldon put a $150K line of credit on his house to start eSentire in 2001. No VCs would touch him—they didn't understand services businesses. He worked 12-hour days, 7 days a week for 7 years to hit $1M in revenue. His co-founder coded while he flew to New York on $99 JetBlue flights from Buffalo to save money.
Then something clicked: they brought in an experienced CEO who transformed their scrappy cybersecurity consulting into a managed service.
Revenue grew from $1M to $10M in just 3 years. They won 95% of competitive deals against Dell-backed SecureWorks by comparing themselves to a local burger joint versus McDonald's.
Today eSentire is worth over a billion dollars. This is the raw, unfiltered story of building a massive B2B company without following any of the Silicon Valley playbook—no YC, no venture capital for years, just pure survival mode.
Why You Should Listen:
- How to win head-to-head sales battles against bigger competitors with no marketing budget.
- Why taking a long time to hit $1M ARR doesn't mean failure.
- How bringing in an experienced CEO after 8 years saved the company.
Keywords (comma-separated):
Startup podcast, Startup podcast for founders, eSentire, Eldon Sprickerhoff, cybersecurity, bootstrapping, managed services, B2B sales, Canadian startup, MSSP, founder-led sales, pivot
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:00 Starting eSentire after 9/11
00:03:26 The dot-com crash reality
00:05:23 $150K home equity line to start
00:08:32 Landing first customer at ING
00:14:03 Making up the rules as they went
00:19:09 Bringing in an experienced CEO
00:22:44 The hamburger pitch that beat Dell
00:28:36 From $1M to $10M in 3 years
00:34:39 Common founder mistakes
00:40:39 Chief survival officer mindset
Send me a message to let me know what you think!
