#43 – A tenacious bootstrapper’s journey to a profitable and sustainable SaaS business

Josh Haynam grew up in the Central Valley of California just 100 miles from the tech center of Silicon Valley--without any awareness of tech jobs or tech businesses when he lived there. He was a successful high school entrepreneur, then supported himself through his college years with his digital SEO agency. Their experiments with custom website quizzes showed promising results, so Josh and his cofounder friends started a company to build the first lead-generation online quizzes as a standalone plugin for websites.

Interact quizzes showed promise with great customer value, but they struggled to sell their new solution to small business owners or marketers who had never seen quiz software before. They experimented, pivoted, and kept going for seven years before they finally reached $1 million ARR with some profits. The ups and downs continued with well-funded competitors, COVID booms and busts, target market pivots, and more.

Interact now is profitable and growing with nearly $3 million in annual recurring revenues, 11 remote employees, and thousands of customers—still without any outside equity funding. Every day, users complete millions of Interact quizzes on their customers’ websites.

Learn more at practicalfounders.com.