Sharon K. Gillenwater is a SaaS startup advisor, mentor, and coach for aspiring tech entrepreneurs. As a tech startup founder and executive, she built, scaled, and sold Boardroom Insiders — an award-winning Inc. 5000 SaaS business intelligence platform — for $25 million in 2022. Sharon recounts this journey in her book Scaling With Soul. After gaining experience in the tech and marketing space in San Francisco, she became an independent consultant working for major tech companies, including Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, Sun Microsystems, and Google.
In this episode…
Founding a business with investments from venture capital may make the process easier initially, but when it comes time to sell the company, you may not receive your fair share of the equity. How can bootstrapping your company lead to greater returns upon exiting?
SaaS advisor and founder Sharon K. Gillenwater founded her VC-backed email newsletter company during the peak of the dot-com bubble. When the bubble burst, her investors dropped her business as a portfolio company despite Sharon’s attempts to restructure the business model. With this valuable lesson, she bootstrapped her next company, scaling it fast until she was approached by a private equity firm that offered to purchase the business. The exit process was grueling, but Sharon walked away with $9 million after a final sale of $25 million, a significantly higher personal return than if her company had been backed by VC. Bootstrapping your business allows you more control over each step of the process, from scaling to selling.
Join Rolando Rosas and Dave Kelly in the latest episode of What The Teck? as they interview SaaS startup advisor and founder Sharon K. Gillenwater about selling her bootstrapped tech company. Sharon discusses the rising number of bootstrapped tech companies, how bootstrapping differs from venture capital, and how to integrate your team into an exit by offering them a portion of the equity.
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