The Founder-Led Marketing Show Lessons from Bootstrapping to $7.5M ARR with 15 People in 9 Years
Aug 28, 2025
Philippe Léhoux, co-founder and CEO of Missive, shares insights from bootstrapping his collaborative email app to $7.5M ARR with a 15-person team. He discusses the challenges of running two startups simultaneously and the lessons learned from being rejected by Y Combinator three times. Philippe emphasizes the benefits of slow, intentional growth and dogfooding products he built. He also addresses the emotional toll of founder life and why staying small can be a competitive advantage, all while maintaining focus on customer needs and sustainable practices.
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Choose Bootstrapping For Control
- Do choose bootstrapping if you want control and a less stressful business path.
- Avoid premature fundraising if you value steady, manageable growth and personal life balance.
ConferenceBadge Began As A Practical Fix
- Philippe built ConferenceBadge to solve painful manual badge printing during events.
- The product exported PDFs and customers printed with cheap kits, which generated most revenue.
COVID Wiped Out Their First Business
- ConferenceBadge reached about $1.5M pre-COVID and then collapsed to near zero.
- Philippe sold it to Tiny after COVID disrupted the business and a hired lead left.