Patrick Campbell: why ProfitWell sold to Paddle for $200M

Episode notes

Patrick Campbell just sold his startup, ProfitWell , to Paddle for $200 million. Highlights (go straight to for the best stuff): 0:00 – "My problem is I'm always curious if other people are living a better dream than me." 1:30 – The major downside to bootstrapping is the lack of network 2:20 – Selling ProfitWell to Paddle, and integrating the two teams. 4:15 – How ProfitWell got started (2012) 6:00 – Initially three co-founders ( Crunchbase ) 7:20 – Patrick's background (what he did before ProfitWell) 10:10 – What did bootstrapping ProfitWell look like? (How much did each founder invest?) 14:15 – Do you want to be a lifestyle company or a "big ass company?" 15:55 – What salary did Patrick pay himself? ( Tweet ) 18:25 – Differences between Patrick (ProfitWell) and Josh Pigford (Baremetrics) 21:45 – Should bootstrapped companies go freemium and try to "win the market?" 26:40 – The characteristics of your market determine most of your outcomes 29:24 – "Don't underestimate the velocity and size of your market." 34:35 – What doe the average SaaS company spend on sales and marketing?