ProfitLed Podcast
de Melissa Kwan
Cel mai nou episod
Bootstrapped to $5M with 17,000 Paying Customers | Marie Martens…
Bootstrapped to $5M with 17,000 Paying Customers | Marie Martens…
Despre acest podcast
Most startup advice is built around venture capital, hypergrowth, and unicorn exits. ProfitLed is for the rest of us. Hosted by Melissa Kwan, 3x bootstrapped founder and CEO of eWebinar, ProfitLed explores what it's really like to build a company on your own terms, without an abundance of resources and friends in high places.
Season Three goes beyond strategy as we explore the intersection of Passion, Profit, and Purpose and what happens when founders evolve and come into financial success.If you're building something real, this one's for you.
*Connect with Melissa at melissakwan.com*
*Brought to you by eWebinar.com**
Episoade
Cele mai noi 20 din 57 episoade
- Bootstrapped to $5M with 17,000 Paying Customers | Marie Martens, S3E13 · 40 minMarie Martens and her partner Filip bootstrapped Tally from zero to $5M ARR with a team of 10. They have 17,000 paying customers with over 2M free users, Not one dollar of…
- Bootstrapped to $3M After 20 Startup Attempts | Luliia Shnai, S3E12 · 49 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 12Iuliia Shnai and cofounder/husband, Marc Seitz, bootstrapped Papermark to $3 million in ARR in 28 months, with a team of two. Three years before that, she was making $2 an hour…
- $60M Exit, 5 Years, Complete Burn Out | Xaver Lehmann, S3E11 · 51 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 11Xaver Lehmann co-founded e-bot7 from a university dorm after seeing a Facebook post about chatbots on a train ride home from King's Day in Amsterdam. Five years later, the…
- Living the Dream at $35M ARR, 32 people | Adam Robinson, S3E10 · 55 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 10Adam Robinson spent a decade on Wall Street trading credit default swaps, then walked away to build a company out of his own apartment. Today he runs a $35 million business with…
- €4M ARR to Surfpreneur in Costa Rica | Ilias Contreas, S3E9 · 50 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 9Ilias Contreas bootstrapped Mixology Academy from a garage in Rome into the leading bartending training school in Italy. €4 million in annual revenue, 10,000 students, half the…
- Zero to $150M Exit at 29 | Matt Watson, S3E8 · 41 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 8Matt Watson grew up in a trailer park in Oklahoma and worked flea markets with his dad from the age of five. At 22, he founded VinSolutions, a CRM for car dealerships. Eight…
- 18 years 6 months and 18 days to Exit | Alejandro Perez, S3E7 · 58 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 7Alejandro Pérez bootstrapped Komet Sales, a cloud-based ERP and e-commerce platform for the floral industry, from his parents' house to a successful private equity exit, 18…
- Two Life Changing Exits in 14 Months | Peter Hwang, S3E6 · 57 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 6Peter Hwang spent 28 years building six companies across six completely different industries. He survived the 2008 financial crisis, which wiped out a near-IPO a month before…
- 3 People, $4.6m Revenue, $60m Exit | Esben Friis-Jensen, S3E5 · 40 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 5Esben Friis-Jensen spent seven years building Cobalt, a VC-backed cybersecurity company with four co-founders, $37 million raised, and over 200 employees. He left without a…
- The Price for €20M in 4 Years | Chris Erler, S3E4 · 36 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 4Chris Erler bootstrapped ComX from €10,000 and unemployment benefits to €20 million in revenue in four years, becoming a first mover in B2B digital sales in Europe. He sold to…
- Bootstrapped 20 Years to Life Changing Exit | Simon Swords, S3E3 · 53 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 3Simon Swords bootstrapped Fundipedia for nearly 20 years before selling to FE fundinfo in May 2025. He started in a garden shed with an Ethernet cable and a VoIP phone, ran three…
- In Pursuit of Freedom | Chris Walker, S3E2 · 52 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 2Chris Walker bootstrapped Refine Labs from $3,000 to over $20 million in revenue in three years, becoming one of the most influential voices in B2B marketing. He had the…
- The Intersection of Passion, Profit, and Purpose - Intro to Season Three | S3E1 · 8 min · Sezonul 3 Episodul 1Hey, it's me again, Melissa, back for Season Three. I'm the cofounder and CEO of eWebinar, and your host here at ProfitLed. This episode is the backstory behind this season's…
- The 12 Most Shocking Surprises on Our Way to $1M ARR | S2E27 · 47 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 27It took eWebinar 16 months to go from idea to product launch, then another 36 months to hit $1M ARR; this is the core theme of this season. That's a total of 52 months from…
- 9 Most Important PLG Lessons Learned | S2E26 · 45 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 26When Melissa cofounded eWebinar, she had no idea it was going to be “product-led”. Before becoming an entrepreneur, she had always been in B2B sales and biz dev roles. She was…
- What Lifestyle Business Means | S2E25 · 45 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 25“This is fine as a lifestyle business.” Says every VC with a slight look of disdain after you pitch them your brilliant idea they don’t want to invest in. The industry has given…
- 5 Pricing Decisions that Turned Out to be Costly Mistakes | S2E24 · 46 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 24Should you “do right by your customers” at the expense of the company, your team, and your own wellbeing? Your answer might be “yes”, until you realize a small change that…
- Why We Stayed Away from Enterprise | S2E23 · 57 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 23Most companies think the answer to more revenue is to sell enterprise, but they aren't aware of the massive hassle and costs that come with going upmarket. There's no such thing…
- 5 Wrong Hires that Ended Up Costing $450k | S2E22 · 58 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 22Hiring is one of the biggest challenges every company faces. For bootstrapped startups, this challenge is even bigger as we have to compete against funded companies and tech…
- When Our Startup Became a Real Business | S2E21 · 43 min · Sezonul 2 Episodul 21eWebinar was built in a silo for 18 months before the first person signed up for a trial. Melissa and her team had no idea if this business would become “real”, and if people…
