This is a post by Jesse Pujji. Jessi a serial entrepreneur that lives in the US. He has:
- Bootstrapped to an 8-figure exist with his previous startup, Ampush
- Is currently building GatewayX, a venture studio that he plans to bootstrap to $1B+
- Executive Chairman & Founder of GrowthAssistant.com
- ex-McKinsey Consultant
Guest Author: Jesse Pujji
In 2021, I started actively using X and LI.
Since then, I’ve launched a bootstrapped venture studio, founded 4 bootstrapped startups, and grown a serious following.
It’s changed my life.
Follow these 12 entrepreneurs to grow a bootstrapped giant this year.
1/ Sean Frank | Ridge Wallet
Ridge Wallet is a MASSIVE ecom business doing $200M+ in revenue.
Sean plans on growing it to $1B+ so he’s a great guy to learn about marketing and ecom.
2/ Mike Salguero | ButcherBox
Mike started ButcherBox in 2015.
With an initial investment of $10,000, Mike was able to bootstrap the subscription meat business to $600M+ in revenue!
3/ Kasey Joyce Grelle | Aux Insights
Kasey and I met while she was CEO of a private equity roll-up of digital media brands.
Together, we started a new consulting business that advises PE deals with digital marketing components.
We’re already profitable. And growing FAST.
4/ Bryan Porter & Mike Beckham | Simple Modern
Mike and Bryan have built a $100M+ revenue company selling high-quality water bottles, bags, and other products.
They’re among the goats of bootstrapping!
5/ Alex Lieberman & Austin Rief | Morning Brew
Prepping for Wall Street jobs, Alex and Austin realized there wasn’t an easily digestible business news format for students.
So they started an email newsletter called Morning Brew.
After 5 years, they sold it in 2020 for $75M!!
6/ Adriane Schwager | GrowthAssistant
Adriane and I have been best friends since middle school.
After 10 years running HR for Hedge Funds, I pitched her an idea to help companies find offshore talent for their marketing teams, and she loved it.
3 years in, and we’re at $12M ARR!
7/ Greg Isenberg | Late Checkout
Greg dropped out of college to build a few venture-backed startups.
Decided venture-backed businesses weren’t right for him and now is bootstrapping a venture studio.
8/ Ric Elias | Red Ventures
Ric Elias is one of the most successful yet kind-hearted entrepreneurs of our generation.
His company Red Ventures is the largest digital media company in the US, doing $2B+ in annual revenue.
9/ Nathan Barry | ConvertKit
Frustrated with the limitations of Mailchimp, Nathan started ConvertKit in 2013 to help creators sell digital products through email.
Today, ConvertKit is doing $30M+ ARR and they show no sign of slowing down.
10/ Andrew Gazdecki | Acquire
He started his first company Bizness Apps in college and sold it for $20M in 2018.
Now, he’s building the best online marketplace to buy and sell startups to help other entrepreneurs do the same.
11/ Adam Robinson | Retention dot com
Adam is building Retention dot com to help turn anonymous shoppers into email contacts you can retarget.
They’ve bootstrapped it to $20M+ ARR!
12/ Henry Schuck | ZoomInfo
Henry and his co-founder used $25,000 in credit card debt to launch DiscoverOrg, a company that built business contact databases for sales teams.
They rebranded to ZoomInfo and IPO’d in 2020.
