Practical Founders Podcast

Antony Ceravolo shares his journey as a successful two-time founder, from Lovefilm.com to founding Sine. He discusses the benefits of bootstrapping over VC funding and the challenges of working with institutional investors. The podcast dives into pricing strategies, international expansion, company growth, and the acquisition by Honeywell. With insights on strategic investments, post-exit reflections, and evolving business value.

Raj Khera, experienced practical SaaS founder, explains the basics of SEO for SaaS founders, tactics for identifying search terms, gaining authority from Google, and useful search engine marketing tools. He also discusses calculating ROI with SEO investment and the importance of SEO for startups and founders.

Justin Hewett started in the software business as a territory sales manager for an education software company in Utah. The company grew and Justin eventually led the sales team as the senior executive. When the company was acquired by PE investors, Justin moved on in 2020 and thought about ideas for a new software business to serve K-12 schools in the US. Flashlight Learning helps K-12 teachers in the US to quickly assess the speaking and writing progress of multilingual students who are learning English. The software captures data for teachers to provide students with improved feedback to accelerate language development. Flashlight Learning grew 300% in 2023 to $4 million in revenue, with a growing team and an outsourced development partner. Justin raised some angel funding to get started and move fast, but they are expecting to be profitable this year with continued growth. Learn more at practicalfounders.com.

Morgan Katz is the founder and CEO of Ticketnology. Morgan was an enthusiastic athlete with a degree in sports management who started her career in ticket sales for sports teams and front-line venue management. Morgan saw how companies with season tickets had difficulty managing their digital tickets after COVID, so she started her own company to solve it with a software solution. Ticketnology is a fast-growing leader in the new category of season ticket management software. Started with a mix of hands-on concierge services and a software solution, Ticketnology is now a complete platform that helps season ticket holders manage and distribute tickets to maximize the value of their season ticket investment. Ticketnology is a bootstrapped and profitable software company with just over $2 million in revenue, four full-time employees, and an outsourced development team. They doubled revenues this year and expect to double each year for the next few years. Morgan is a member of a Practical Founders Peer Group. Learn more at practicalfounders.com.

In this podcast, Stephanie Betters, CEO and founder of LeftMain REI, shares her remarkable journey from being a Nurse Practitioner in heart surgery to creating a successful CRM tailored for real estate investors. She discusses the frustrations that led her to build the software herself, teaching herself to code in just three months. Stephanie also highlights the rapid growth of her company, achieving nearly $3 million in annual recurring revenue while remaining bootstrapped. Her inspiring story emphasizes innovation, resilience, and dreaming big in the entrepreneurial space.

Shameem Hameed created several companies, including a medical billing services company, before starting ZH Healthcare in 2008 to provide billing and EHR software to innovative healthcare providers. Their BlueBriX software grew into a comprehensive and customizable platform used by hundreds of healthcare organizations around the world. ZH Healthcare now has almost 200 employees in the US and India. The company has been profitable every year and has not taken on any outside funding.

Kevin McArdle spent 15 years working in large software companies before becoming a practical investor and acquirer of smaller SaaS businesses. Kevin is the CEO and co-founder of Big Band Software, a holding company that buys and holds small, profitable, and growing SaaS businesses—with no intent of selling those businesses. Kevin has acquired over 40 businesses in the last 10 years with this buy-and-hold model. As an expert guest on the podcast, Kevin answers common questions from practical founders about the holding company approach as an exit path. Holding companies are common in other industries, including Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway, but relatively new to the software industry. Learn more at practicalfounders.com.

Harry Hopkins is co-founder and CIO of Viewgol, a medical billing technology software and services company based in Dallas, Texas. Viewgol was started in 2017 by three founders who got the product and revenues going before hiring additional staff. Their revenue cycle management (RCM) analytics software reveals medical billing problems and missed revenue opportunities at physician offices in the US. As the company expanded its service offerings, Viewgol grew very quickly, from three employees in 2019 to almost a thousand employees at the end of 2023. Viewgol was acquired in October 2023 by CPSI, a public medical billing solutions company, for a reported $67 million in cash and earnouts. Learn more at practicalfounders.com.

Hamed Mazrouie owned a security monitoring business and other businesses for many years before he started his first software and services business called Vivant Corporation. Vivant provides a complete multi-site internet phone system to thousands of restaurants and law firms across the US. Vivant grew steadily and profitably for 10 years and is now a maturing business with 50 employees. In the last four years, Hamed and his growing team have been building Milagro, a complete restaurant management system to increase repeat customer business. They now have happy paying customers who use their powerful software which includes advanced data analytics. Their vision is expanding based on early customer results. Learn more at practicalfounders.com.

Subramanyam Kasibhat has created dozens of products in many different industries. He and his wife were contracted by a friend to build a software solution for a manufacturing plant for a German company. Seven years after they started with their first customer, they rewrote the software to serve other customers and the Vegam Solutions business started to grow. Vegam Solutions is smart factory software for digital optimization and control of complex manufacturing plants. Vegam now has 180 remote employees, primarily in India, with almost $10 million in revenue. They have grown without outside funding by selling to large customers with complex needs. Learn more about practicalfounders.com.