Practical Founders Podcast

Andy Alsop, founder and CEO who bought and grew The Receptionist into a $7M+ ARR SaaS with thousands of customers. He discusses turning a simple iPad check-in into a complex, sticky system. He explains bootstrapped growth, meticulous financials to avoid retrades, and choosing a sale over growth equity. He also outlines his “employee supremacy” culture and practical practices that boosted retention and value.

Sharon Nouh, founder and CEO of ProSpend who bootstrapped a spend-management SaaS to ~1,000 customers before selling to ISH. She talks about focusing on mid-market pain, expanding with adjacent modules (expenses, AP, PO, budgets), using reseller and MYOB partnerships to scale, and choosing an acquisition to accelerate UK growth while keeping control.

Perry Rosenbloom, founder and CEO of LaunchBay who builds onboarding software for SaaS and services. He talks about fixing the messy post-sale work, cutting onboarding time dramatically, and why charging for setup boosts completion. They cover templated workflows, shared client portals, automation and AI, plus who should own onboarding as teams scale.

Dinakara Nagalla, founder and former CEO of EmpowerMX who digitized aircraft maintenance for major airlines, shares the story of building a vertical SaaS without big VC. He discusses replacing paper with a cloud-native, mobile-first system, proving ROI to conservative buyers, scaling with a small team and offshore execution, surviving COVID, and shifting to AI products for mental health and education.

Chad Ingram is the founder of Distro, an AI recruiting software company that helps mid-market and enterprise companies automate candidate screening, vetting, ranking, and scheduling. He previously built Jump, a venture-backed customer engagement software company, through a stressful growth and sale process that taught him painful lessons about fundraising, control, and acquisition pressure. Distro started as a marketplace to help companies hire software engineers globally, then evolved into an AI-first recruiting platform that integrates with applicant tracking systems and helps recruiters handle far more open roles. When Chad sold the company, Distro had 14 employees and about $3.5M ARR, with revenue shifting from marketplace margins toward SaaS subscription and consumption-based contracts. Distro was acquired by Vensure Employer Solutions, a large private HR platform company that wanted Distro both for its own recruiting needs and for its 161,000 customers. Chad explains why strategic buyers cared more about healthy financials than SaaS vanity metrics, why he said no to the first offer, what he learned from selling Jump too early, and why a daily cash flow forecast gave him the freedom to choose instead of react. Key Takeaways First Offers are not always the right offers, and founders with real options can politely say no and keep building. Manual First is often the smartest way to start, proving demand with spreadsheets, email, and humans before writing software. Product Evolution happened by following customer demand, turning a hiring marketplace into an AI recruiting SaaS platform. Cash Visibility gave Chad optionality, because daily cash flow tracking removed surprises and helped him make harder decisions earlier. Quote from Chad Ingram, founder of Distro "You gotta know your numbers in detail. There are so many founders who don't know their freaking numbers. How do you not know your numbers? You just hope it all works itself out in six months? That's not how it works. You will go out of business. "I learned how to do a daily cash flow forecast when we started my 2nd company, Distro. And I've been running one every day. That might seem a little too microscopic for many, but guess what? There's no freaking surprises. "I could tell you nine months from now, the day that we would go out of business if we didn't have enough cash, unless there was some change. It's a lot less stressful knowing the facts. When you know the facts, you can make things happen. You don't have to sit and wonder and hope it works out. "I don't care if you have zero mathematical aptitude or your background is sales or something else. You have to know the basics of accounting. If you don't, you are at a huge, huge disadvantage, especially when you go to sell." Links Chad Ingram on LinkedIn Distro on LinkedIn Distro website Vensure Employer Solutions website Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale This podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com. Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding. A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.

Joseph Lee, co-founder and CEO of Supademo, built an AI-powered demo platform that reached $3M ARR and 150k+ users fast. He discusses automating interactive, annotated, translatable demos in minutes. Topics include AI features that speed demo creation, reverse trials and freemium growth tactics, balancing product-led and enterprise motions, and the need to iterate constantly in an AI-driven market.

Tanner Kovacevich of Lighter Capital joins Greg Head to explain how non-dilutive financing works for practical SaaS founders. Since 2010, Lighter Capital has funded hundreds of recurring-revenue SaaS companies that want growth capital without giving up ownership or board control. Tanner shares discuss how non-dilutive financing fits companies with $1M–$5M ARR that are growing steadily but don't want venture capital. He explains typical loan structures, underwriting factors like churn and revenue trends, and why capital-efficient SaaS companies are often better candidates than "grow-at-all-costs" startups. We discuss several examples of practical SaaS founders who used debt instead of equity to retain ownership and build long-term value. The conversation focuses on how certain practical founders can use capital strategically—accelerating growth while preserving control and optionality. Key Takeaways Non-Dilutive Capital – SaaS-specific debt financing allows SaaS founders to fund growth without giving up equity, board control, or long-term ownership upside. Capital Sequencing – Smart founders combine funding types over time, using non-dilutive capital early before considering equity later. Retention Matters – High churn or declining revenue trends are the biggest red flags when underwriting recurring-revenue SaaS businesses. Ownership Economics – Avoiding early dilution can preserve tens of millions of dollars in founder equity in successful outcomes. Capital Efficiency Wins – Many profitable SaaS companies grow steadily and still attract buyers without needing big VC funding. Quote from Tanner Kovacevich, VP of Sales at Lighter Capital "Often we fund founders that just want to have a little more cash on hand and not have to manage cash so closely. What does that open up for the founder's mindset alone? To just have some extra cash on hand, to go out and hire whoever they want, an account executive, SDR. Because a lot of it can be psychological. "It's not only the grand initiatives; it can just be the ability to breathe, extend your runway to look ahead. Maybe you want to offload a couple of things you're working on as the CEO, like acting as an accountant when you're the strategic CEO and trying to manage sales day to day. "Lighter Capital provides non-dilutive debt financing for B2B SaaS companies, but we also work with other recurring revenue types of model technology companies. With Lighter, there are no warrants on our loan, no personal guarantees that the founder has to place, and minimal financial covenants on it." Links Tanner Kovacevich on LinkedIn Lighter Capital on LinkedIn Lighter Capital website Bootstrapped Podcast Podcast Sponsor – Lighter Capital This podcast is sponsored by Lighter Capital. In the last 15 years, Lighter Capital has helped over 600 software and SaaS founders secure simple, non-dilutive financing to grow a little faster—without giving up any precious equity or board seats to investors. Simple debt funding from Lighter Capital can range from $50K to $10 million, with straightforward terms, no personal guarantees or covenants, and up to a 4-year payback period. Go to LighterCapital.com to apply and get a quick pre-qualification. Then talk with their experienced team to create a practical funding plan to achieve your goals. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com. Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding. A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.

Vivek Bhaskaran, founder and CEO of QuestionPro, built a profitable survey and CX platform over 25+ years. He talks about staying founder-led on product, growing via about ten small acquisitions, and scaling from mid-market to enterprise. He explores practical AI adoption, what experiments succeed or fail, and how synthetic respondents could change early-stage research.

Juan Ignacio Garcia Braschi, partner at L40 and former Cabify CFO with two decades in banking and private equity, explains how buyers value SaaS companies. He discusses why Rule of 40 performance still matters, how growth, retention, and profitability drive 4–8x ARR multiples, and why private-equity-backed platforms dominate add-on acquisitions. Also covers ideal timing and deal mechanics for sellers.

Simon Swords, founder of Fundipedia who built a profitable, high-retention data governance SaaS for major buy-side firms, recounts his build-to-exit journey. He talks about enduring long enterprise sales cycles, building for Rule of 40 performance, navigating M&A timing, and using tools like ChatGPT in diligence. He reflects on reputation, persistence, and structuring a company to sell.