Practical Founders Podcast #61: Sold His Bootstrapped SaaS Company for 16X Revenues - Praveen Ghanta
Sep 15, 2023
Praveen Ghanta, Co-founder and former CEO of Hidden Levers, shares his entrepreneurial journey from MIT graduate to bootstrapped SaaS success. He reveals the strategic decisions that led to selling Hidden Levers for an impressive 16X revenue. Praveen discusses the challenges of transitioning from corporate life, building a product to serve wealth managers, and the advantages of using fractional teams for growth. Now at the helm of Fraction, he emphasizes nurturing talent and practical insights for aspiring founders in the SaaS landscape.
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First Startup and the Dot-Com Bust
- Praveen Ghanta's first startup, built while working at Capital One, was acquired by Intralinks in 2000.
- The anticipated Intralinks IPO never happened due to the dot-com bust, leaving Praveen's stock worth very little.
Start Fractionally
- Start businesses as side hustles or fractional projects before going all-in.
- This approach allows for testing and validation while mitigating financial risk.
HiddenLevers Origin
- The idea for HiddenLevers came from Praveen's personal need to find investments correlated with oil prices.
- Unable to find existing solutions, he built the software himself.