Practical Founders Podcast

Sarah Hum studied graphic design at university before she discovered she loved to help software startups create new products. She moved to Silicon Valley to work at Facebook as a product designer, but a side project helped her find a problem she wanted to solve. So she quit her job and built an initial software product called Canny with her technical cofounder while traveling the world together as nomading entrepreneurs. Within a year, Canny created enough revenue for them to live and travel frugally.  Canny is a customer feedback management software for product managers at SaaS companies to collect useful product feedback inside their products, then prioritize requests and communicate with customers about their requested features. The Canny product has evolved quickly using its own product to engage with customers and make decisions about the next product features and improvements. Canny is growing steadily with over $3 million in annual recurring revenue and 13 remote employees. They continue to experiment with substantial pricing experiments for different customer segments. Sarah openly blogs about the ups and downs of their startup journey and their unique approaches to hiring, designing, and testing new tactics.

Mark Abbott was an active investor and board member for 20 years when he realized that most of the 100+ companies he helped were not good a their “business fundamentals.” The fundamentals of setting long-term goals, making short-term plans, and then aligning teams and individuals to make efficient progress. He thought of writing a book but discovered the book “Traction” by Gino Wickman and his branded EOS® (Entrepreneurial Operating System) system.  Mark worked with his cofounders in 2016 to create a software platform that aligned with the principles and processes of EOS and other “Business Operating Systems.” Soon Ninety.io (now just Ninety) was a popular software used by EOS coaches and business consultants. They licensed the branded terminology from EOS Worldwide, which presented both opportunities and challenges. The company grew steadily, funded by revenues until Ninety had over a thousand customers and more than 50 employees. In 2021, Mark talked to just one tier 1 venture capital firm, Insight Partners, and then raised $20 million in growth capital from them. Mark and the Ninety team have a big vision to change the way businesses grow and thrive. In this episode, Mark explains: How he discovered the need to manage business fundamentals better as an investor in 100+ companies Why he decided to license the EOS-branded terminology and name to get the company started The pluses and minuses of partnering with a branded methodology provider How they used Ninety software to grow faster and be ready for a major venture investment round  Why Mark still participates in CEO peer groups and coaches other leaders in his “spare time” Why he decided to raise $20M in capital from a Tier 1 venture fund in 2021 What are the “business fundamentals” that Ninety leverages to accelerate growth Read the full interview transcript and find more episodes at practicalfounders.com.  

Craig Letton quit his corporate sales job in 2011 to take over his parents’ small printing business in Scotland. It was his first time running a business and he learned hard business lessons quickly. Eventually, he discovered a huge need for custom-printed promotional materials by frontline salespeople in the global drinks and beverage industry. He sold their printing equipment to focus just on the software to solve this tricky problem for those salespeople, marketing departments, and regional printers.  Running the business for revenue and profit with no outside funding, Craig grew the MRM Global business slowly with big brands in the alcoholic beverage industry all over Europe. They worked hard and stayed frugal and started to grow. Then COVID hit and revenues evaporated. Their survival tactics helped them keep going and even grow faster when restrictions were lifted. They raised some practical funding from BGF Capital in the UK to stay alive during COVID lockdowns and expand quickly after that. MRM Global is now a fast-growing marketing technology software company serving many of the largest global beverage brands in 20 different countries. This is a great example of a “small niche vertical market” with a very specific problem presenting a massive opportunity to create a large and valuable company. It’s also the story of grit, perseverance, frugality, and intense customer focus creating a huge opportunity for growth. In this episode, Craig explains: Why he took over his parents’ small printing business in Scotland after he left a corporate sales job How he uncovered a major opportunity in the global drinks (beer and liquor) industry for salespeople to easily create custom, branded promotional materials for their customers using software How the small company grew profitably and steadily until COVID shut down restaurants and hotels, taking their revenue to zero What they did to survive the COVID shutdown and  how he defines entrepreneurial resilience Why he decided to take some practical funding to survive the downturn and prepare for growth Why he thinks this business will be a £100 million business someday Read the text transcript of this interview and find other Practical Founder Podcast episodes at practicalfounders.com.

Jeff Matlow is a serial entrepreneur and a crazy triathlete and a long-distance runner who found a way to put those passions together in a software startup that grew up fast. He saw an opportunity to create a better registration experience for endurance events like 5Ks, marathons, and triathlons. In 2008, he sold the big deal to USA Triathlon and set out to build the website and registration platform he envisioned. The company I Am Athlete (now called imATHLETE) went live with their platform and started selling to hundreds, then thousands, of other endurance event managers all over the US. The company grew without big funding and the solution expanded to manage payments, social media promotion, and more.  In 2019 Jeff sold the company to a major endurance event company. Jeff shares the challenges in growing this company and the learnings from trying to grow with a strategic partnership. Like running a marathon or climbing Everest, the journey is hard and how you approach every day is critical. In this episode, Jeff explains: How his experience as a marathoner and triathlete let him to the opportunity to create a better event registration platform How he sold his first big customer before he had a product and a website Why he didn’t raise any outside money until I Am Athlete was an established market leader Why growing a company is like climbing Everest or running a marathon His experience selling the company and what worked and didn’t work How the modern software startup and investor game is like his first career finding new bands in the music business Read the full transcript and find other episodes of the Practical Founders Podcast at practicalfounders.com.

Howard Gottlieb created and sold several businesses before starting a school fundraising website in 2003 called Easy Fundraising Ideas. It grew into the most popular Internet website for school fundraisers. He experimented with many business models and ideas while the fundraising industry still wasn’t changing or growing.  In 2012, Howard started Read-a-Thon as a literacy-based fundraising platform that helped students raise money while boosting education. Their easy platform and simple fundraising approach created amazing results. The Read-a-Thon business grew steadily and profitably without any outside funding. Their relentless focus on elementary school fundraising and their culture of continuous improvement helped them grow faster and create a much bigger impact. In 2022, Read-a-Thon helped thousands of schools and students to raise over $30 million in donations. Their platform has tracked over 30 billion reading minutes by students who have used the platform to earn donations.   In this episode, Howard explains: How Read-a-Thon has impacted literacy in the US in a material way as they reach more schools, students, and donors Why they changed their business model from pledge-based to one-time fundraising How he experimented with many business models in school fundraising before starting Read-a-Thon Why he didn’t sell the company to a private equity buyer that had an offer on the table The power of specialized focus on elementary school fundraising vs. being a generalized platform for any type of fundraising Why he is constantly testing, improving, and optimizing everything inside the business and in the customer experience What he learned from the previous 6 companies he created and sold before starting Read-a-Thon For more details and the full interview transcript, go to practicalfounders.com/podcast.

Scott Pickard didn’t know he was embarking on a 15-year software entrepreneurial journey when he signed on to manage a horse veterinary practice in Calgary, Canada. But they had built some internal software to help them manage their large practice that drastically improved their business results. Soon other horse vets wanted their HVMS software and the Business Infusions software business was created with Scott leading the small team.  Business Infusions grew steadily without big budgets, big funding, or a big team since 2006. Equine (horse) veterinary and hospital practices all over the world heard about their software and lined up to buy it. Now Business Infusions powers over 400 sizable veterinary practices all over the world. The company was acquired for cash by Merit Holdings in 2021 to run as a standalone company to expand its solutions to continue serving its clients.  Scott and his dedicated team weren’t in a glamorous industry with fancy modern technology, SaaS best practices, and big funding. They just served their loyal veterinarian customers and built a reputation in their tight-knit community for dedication, support, and focus on equine vets who have specialized needs. In this episode, Scott explains: How their popular HVMS software was first created for internal use by a successful horse veterinary practice in Calgary, Canada How they grew steadily and efficiently with vet-to-vet referrals by their existing customers Challenges with board members who know their industry but weren’t savvy about the software business How Business Infusions grew to be the global market leader for large equine veterinary practices around the world The process of how they were acquired in 2021 and what happened to the company after that Find out more and read the full interview transcript at practicalfounders.com. 

Josh Cameron and three university friends started a scrappy software company in Brisbane Australia just after graduating. They had run the popular college bar where they discovered there was no simple software solution to track, onboard, and schedule hourly employees. They started Tanda in 2012 and it grew into a successful workforce management software company in Australia —without any outside funding. The four founders moved to Chicago in 2019 to expand their North American business. Their product worked fine in the US, but sales, marketing, and operations all had to be rebuilt, which took years to figure out. They acquired the Workforce company and took on that brand and domain name outside of Australia. Now Workforce.com is a leading workforce management software company that helps improve time and labor management for shift and hourly workforces. Their 130 employees serve 6,000 customers in 80 countries with employee scheduling, time and attendance, employee engagement, analytics, and automated compliance. In this episode, Josh explains: How he and his university friends chose to start a scrappy software startup instead of taking big jobs after they graduated How they bootstrapped and grew their company in Brisbane in Australia for 5 years before the founders moved to the US and settled in Chicago to expand their North American business How they compete and win in a crowded marketplace against bigger competitors The growing pains they experienced growing from a small team in Australia to a global organization with 130 employees with offices in three countries The benefits of being frugal, growing at a steady pace, and not taking big VC funding Why they bought a 100-year old company to get the Workforce.com domain name and brand  Check out practicalfounders.com to read the full transcript from this episode.

Joe Griffin recently left his job of 8 years as co-CEO of ClearVoice, a company that he and co-founder Jay Swanson started in 2014 out of their digital marketing agency business in Phoenix, Arizona. ClearVoice was acquired by Fiverr in 2019 and has been operating as an independent subsidiary since then. Fiverr is now a large public company with a global reach.   ClearVoice was created in the fast-changing web search marketing industry in 2014 out of the need from larger companies for high-quality content to drive their organic website traffic. Joe and Jay previously ran their search marketing agency iAcquire and used profits to self-fund the first ClearVoice platform. They eventually raised a small amount of practical outside funding, including a seed funding round of $1.5M and venture debt of $2M. ClearVoice is now a leading platform for brands to hire industry-savvy experts to write useful content that is branded for their communities and customers. Thousands of brands and over 10,000 industry specialist creators use ClearVoice to drive organic marketing efforts with high-quality content. In this episode, Joe explains: How he had created and sold previous internet marketing agencies and technologies before creating ClearVoice The difficult transition of creating and funding the ClearVoice marketplace out of an existing services business The acquisition by Fiverr before they went public in 2019 and how they operated as an independent subsidiary after that Their practical funding with self-funding from their services business, a little angel funding, a small $1.5M seed investment round, and then venture debt before being acquired How he led ClearVoice with a co-CEO and how they worked on all big decisions together Find all the episodes and resources at practicalfounders.com.  

John Francis is a general partner at Stout Street Capital, a  venture capital fund based in Denver, Colorado. Stout Street has made 70 small seed and pre-seed investments in software startups outside the big tech centers in North America.  Unlike big Silicon Valley VCs, almost half of Stout Street's investments are in practical startups that have reasonable valuations, sustainable growth models, and won’t need more outside investment before they exit.  In this in-depth interview with a “practical funder,” John explains the ROI math of professional venture investors and reveals how they think about investing. John also has great insights on how founders should think about raising money, or not, in the first place.  In this episode, John explains: The basic investment math that a seed-stage venture fund manager needs to deliver the expected return to their “limited partner” investors What kind of investment valuation and eventual exit outcomes are required to raise institutional capital When a practical founder shouldn’t raise VC funding and how they should be thinking about taking outside investment capital How “practical VC investing” is different than traditional moonshot VC investing and why founders need to be clear about which kind of funding they want What’s happening in valuation for investment and acquisitions in 2022 compared to 2021 Find all the Practical Founders Podcast episodes at practicalfounders.com. 

Zach Moreno, CEO and CTO of Squadcast, a podcast recording platform, discusses their journey from idea to 10,000 customers. He talks about the importance of timing and technological advancements, their participation in bootstrapped accelerator TinySeed, and their approach to learning and experimentation.