How do you engineer a life-changing exit without VCs?

today we dive into the story of Melissa Quan and she shares her incredible insights as the co-founder of e weinar the Sass solution to eliminate the repetitive task of running onboarding in sales webinars she opens up about her personal journey of the stress of running her previous company that she led to an exit and sold we discuss what bootstrapping actually means and that actually raising a little bit of money is still a part of the bootstrap game list has some valuable insights that I'm excited to share with you let's go ahead and get started welcome back to the show today we have bissa Quan joining us thank you so much Melissa for being on the show thanks so much for having you Jason well you know you have a very interesting story you know being co-founder of e weinar and having a journey at pursuing veter Capital but having more of a a mission now on only being bootstrapped and kind of promoting that as a message for other Founders I think it be great for the the audience to know a little bit about you your background and kind of what led you to that path yeah so I've been in startups for 13 years so e weinar is my third third bootstrap startup um I guess I didn't choose to start this way 13 years ago I just didn't really know there was another Choice um and we're talking 13 years ago before y combinator Tech Stars you know all that stuff right like I was living in Vancouver and there was just meetup.com right I don't know if you remember that like you would like join groups and then you would go to a restaurant like talk about your startups and then there were like these things like co-working spaces and all that stuff so um I just wanted to start a business I didn't even know that a technology startup was called a startup like I just I had quit sap and I wanted to start a business on my own and I had never really done it like 100% of my time so um my first company you know it was a product company turned agency so you know we needed the money we were bootstraps and therefore we had to say yes to everything so what started as you know a real estate product a real estate tech product became a custom apps company for Real Estate developers and that was actually my first for into like you know really getting into the startup Community traveling to New York uh meeting other real estate Tech Founders um and then my first company you know it it just it wasn't an investable company right it became an agency um but that was where I learned about you know that that that world also going to New York that company transitioned into my second company which was my first SAS product uh it was an openhouse check-in um check-in app so walking into an open house instead of signing in on a piece of paper we were the iPad check-in app for open houses and we sold that to brokerages and franchises on the Enterprise level and you know honestly that company took probably two and a half years before we earned the first 10 $10 and you know how we started that company was I took all the revenue from my first company took out a loan against that and that's how we got the initial Capital we had burned through so much of that that I was always like I was always in survival mode and that was the reason why I moved to New York to be closer to my potential customers to be closer to real estate and in New York was where I learned about Venture Capital because everybody and their dog was Raising Venture Capital every single event I went to they were talking about different VCS and whether they could introduce me because they knew I was in survival mode and the at that point you know we were so poor that like I was always trying to make ends meet by taking Consulting projects s projects you know making a small website for people trying to make payroll you know like we were just always trying to patch the next hole and I was getting pretty exhausted so the idea of building a company using someone else's money was actually pretty attractive so um you know I met with VC's tried to raise Capital nobody would give me money and then along the same time we had started closing deals found the product what that people would pay for and then within a year of you know the first $10 we became profitable right also because our burden was so low having the team in Canada and I had at that point already learned to live with very little um and then I was also seeing that my Venture back founder friends while I was becoming more stressfree they were becoming more stressful because they were also always trying to raise the next round and I guess strategically creating a narrative around their company such that they can do that right and meanwhile we were closing more deals and I was starting to live better travel more calling my own shots so in a big way I guess I saw both sides of the coin like trying so hard to raise Venture Capital getting rejected so many times and then earning my freedom eventually um but then also seeing Venture back Founders kind of going the opposite direction and that was when I realized that bootstrapping and raising Venture Capital was really less of a financial decision and more of a more of a lifestyle choice and it was since then that I became you know kind of I guess a die hard bootstrapper and also an advocate for bootstrapping and hoping to you know Inspire other Founders to know that success comes in many different forms and that they don't have to raise venture capital in order to have permission to succeed and when I say permission to succeed it's not like you know a VC giving you permission to succeed right I think a lot of times it's like you want to seek validation from your peers um at least that was the position that I was in because I I never felt like I was doing the right thing and I wanted someone else to give me money so that my community would see me as a success because that's how I saw them and none of that is real because the only definition of success that matters is your own and it was through that experience that I realized I didn't need someone else's money to be successful in my business right the only thing that really matters to me even right now is to live the life that I want where I can have fun in where I could travel and spend time with friends and family and call my all of my own shots right and all my own shots to me just means like I don't sit an alarm in the morning I Nomad nine months of the year I have a completely remote team I work with a a full team of contractors I have made an active decision to not have any employees because I know I'm not great at managing people and that's what I mean by calling all my own shots it doesn't mean like I want to have a fancy car and have a yacht and fly private right so that's kind of my background on on how I arrived um at you know wanting to always spoot trap my companies versus you know raising Venture Capital yeah know your story I think is going to resonate with a lot of Founders especially a lot of Founders I've spoken to and and me personally when I kind of made my first attempt to raise Venture and failed there was that seeking a validation of I want to do something bigger and kind of getting that approval um yeah albeit every founder has a choice to kind of find the right path for them but I think it's important to kind of acknowledge that there these other paths you know like Venture is not the only way and sometimes Venture is very misleading because because you want money doesn't mean someone's going to be giving it to you for what you're building yeah and it could Le you down a vicious trap that leads to burnout you know closing up shop and you you took a huge risk you know you took out loan against your other business and like that put your other assets at at risk that you know bu your livelihood risk and so on uh so you put a lot on the line um and that's you know some Founders are not comfortable with that I know I did that with my my small businesses I basically funded the startup that we we ended up doing that end up not going anywhere because we set all our time all our productive time chasing money and when we could have been serving our customers better you know refining our business model to extract more profitability from the business to give us a longer Runway and give us more flexibility in the choices that we made so I think your story um is not an uncommon one and I think it's something that a lot of Founders should realize that they should consider their options and that's why I wanted you have on the podcast because typically we talk about fundraising we talking about how much did you raise and we celebrate the raise and how'd you get there what was the hassle but yeah I want to have a fresh perspective on the alternative because there's a lot of societal pressure to kind of have this label of success and there's ways to and some of the most happiest and most successful founders running 10 plus million dollar year business or a Million Dollar Plus year businesses but they have high profit mergin live the lifestyle they want and they're comfortable whereas I know several Founders that have raised tons of capital that only can pay themselves like 100k atra 50k they they can't pay themselves the profits of the business they are profitable so there's you you can't really just give yourself higher salaries for the sake of giving yourself higher salaries um you know so from a lifestyle perspective until there's like a real exit Point there's not a lot of Financial Freedom uh so you appreciate you sharing your your perspective uh you know you kind of talked about the the Real Estate Solutions that you had built out from agency to the SAS but you're also in a new company now called e weinar can you tell us a little bit about that yeah so e weinar automates webinars right so we turn any video into an interactive webinar that you can set on a recurring schedule so you can run hundreds of webinars every single month without actually being in front of a camera to do it live so think about all the things you're doing repetitively or want to so it could be like demos training on boardings especially if you're you know selling SAS or any service um activation and churn is probably one of your you know biggest Revenue drivers so we help companies scale really themselves um so that they can do more you know with their time um and it's actually a product that I wish existed when I was running my previous company because I was so bootstrapped so I was the person after closing a deal doing all of the demos onboarding and trainings for people that don't show up but you know you have to do those because if you know your customers you know team or agents don't adopt your product it's your fault not their fault so sometimes I I found myself doing like eight of these back toback and they were all exactly the same just for different companies so I'd always dreamt of this product that could you know do my job and and that you know could clone me so I could go and and just live my life um so after you know two months after I sold my previous business in 2019 I started this business um and it's been you know four years now since we incorporated um three years since since the product has been live and we just crossed a million ARR congratulations that's awesome and can you tell us so you know your last business so you're telling us about the the SAS was this the SAS business for Real Estate open check-in that you sold yeah yeah it was called called spacio can you tell us a little bit about what that experience like was like selling the company yeah um I mean it was so easy for me right um because I didn't shop it I didn't want to um I was in a point in my life where I like spent 10 years in real estate Tech like over two businesses and frankly I was just tired of where I was right there were a lot of cool things happening in the world that I wasn't a part of I found that I was waking up every day just hating what I was doing I really didn't love the product I wasn't in love with the industry I didn't love my customers and I was always frustrated in a way that like I just couldn't feel the successes that we were having like I just didn't want to be there and I couldn't tell my co-founder because you know this is someone that I had convinced to join my mission in my journey I couldn't show that to my team so it was it felt very lonely um and at that point I was just kind of complaining to one of my you know industry friends and mentors um Aaron who ended up buying my company so he was like you know I I just said to him one day likei wonder if my cofounder would let me sell my share so I could move on to something else like I just wanted to be a part of something else after 10 years of being in the same place and he was like Hey if you're serious about that like you know we're looking to make our first acquisition but you're going to have to stay so we started H having that conversation October of 2018 and we closed that deal two months later in January of 2019 I didn't shop the company because I I knew Aaron I knew that the the offer he was going to make me was going to be the best one there were so few people in the industry that I would work for and I had spent so many years until that point earning my freedom because I was also nading at that point calling all of my own shots that I didn't want to work for someone who would disrupt my lifestyle it was most important for me that you know it was a it was a CO that I respected that it was someone that would take care of my team and that it was someone who wouldn't change my life so I didn't want to jeopardize what I had at the time um and also like because he was my friend I didn't have to put on like a dog and pony show to sell the company like he knew where I was um he knew that my heart wasn't there but that I would show up for him and that was that was most important so um I think a lot of people think like when you sell a business you have to get the highest price but it's it's not like that's one element right I think as long as the price is kind of in the range there are so many other things to consider when you sell your business because it's not like you can sell this this business and move on right like you're with them for like let's say one to three years um so I was lucky enough that I just came across someone who took care of me and and took care of the team and the fact that you kind of mentioned price and the acquisition it's like wasn't the so decision- making Factor that's often a very common I see in the negotiations for fundraising as well I would't get so hung up on I must get the highest price I want to have the least delusion I want to make the most money whatever but there's so many other terms that matter in both an acquisition or fundraise that could have a much longer impact on the future of the business as well as you know the mental health of the fer uh it sounds like you were very conscious of that decision and yeah your friend probably knew your deepest darkest secrets he probably knew the skeletons in the closet of the business I was probably comfortable with them and knew you know maybe there's additional upside um what was the lockup for like did you have to stay for a certain amount of time like at what point were you kind of allowed to to exit the business after the acquisition and did he only buy your shares and you buy the whole company uh yeah so they bought the whole company um we were actually part of their plan to exit themselves so they wanted to buy our Revenue um so that they could piece together a story to have a much larger exit themselves so that was also part of the attractive thing is like you know it's so rare that you sell a business and like the person gives you all cash or the company gives you all cash right it was like cash stock and earnout so the earnout was two years um I managed to negotiate like a six months early out um just because they didn't fully find a place for me and I think that's a pretty familiar story like one company can only have one CEO so it's very very difficult that you know a CEO buys another CEO and then you know you also get to call the shots um and there when I when I joined that bigger company like there were multiple people already doing my entire job so there wasn't really a place for me outside of making sure that our customers felt comfortable because I was the business right because we were a small business so I was all of our relationships so it was more important to that business that our customer stayed and all of them did so I was there for that transition but it just got to a point where I I wasn't there for a good reason like I was just there so I think it it worked out for everybody but also because I started e weinar two months after um that business was acquired so a year and a half later um e weinar was about to go to market so I basically just told them like I'm not really here for any reason I'm I I'd like to launch this new business so we kind of negotiated a a six months out that was beneficial for both sides but I also want to bring up that the only reason I was able to sell that business is because we were bootstrapped there is no way that a VC would let us sell that business at the price that we did um you know because they would want me to go for a much larger exit they want a certain return either you know I would have to keep going or they would have to hire a new CEO so that exit was not retirement level but it was certainly life-changing and I can't imagine not being able to sell my business at the time that we did because a third party who didn't spend five years building that business told me I couldn't right that would have been also life-changing but in in a bad way right like I would have had to quit and then give up everything thing and then maybe have to start a new thing without the capital and the confidence that I did get from that from that exit yeah it's a it's a good point of contrast and going back to kind of the bootstrap verse you know Capital Ray path and that kind of expectation that if someone gives you money for their business for your business they're locking up they saying goodbye to that money for years with the expectation that you at least 10x 100x you know whatever that you know projections are meant to be uh and life happens people have life-changing events you know maybe people have kids things happen at home personal reasons whatever may be just just disinterest in the work that you're doing may happen and you know if an opportunity to sell comes up you know are you in full control of that and that's another negotiation tip when raising capitalist who has veto Authority in any potential liquidation event or the sell of shares uh that could be a more important negotiation chip than a couple million dollars on the valuation of a deal um or you whatever it might be uh so it's interesting for you to kind of share that personal perspective of you would not to you would have had to stay even if you raised a nominal amount of money you know there would still probably been some pressure uh and expectation that probably wouldn't allowed you to think that you could sell it uh anywhere around that price yeah I mean there's no free money is there like even though it feels free in the beginning it's not free when you need to get signatures o another valuable point is you know when things aren't going well and you need to go to your board go to your investors and have them sign something that uh could maybe put you in a healthy position but puts them in a negative position that's a very tough call and I've been there I've had to deal with the down round after an acquisition fell through the day before and crawling back to our investors get the capital we needed to stay alive we we got hosted and when we actually ended up selling the company we got substantially less than we could have because of those negotiations that that that happened you still lifechanging but still punched in the gut you know because uh the investors held the chips at that point I think if we if we're on the topic of like raising Capital right I think one of the biggest misconceptions about boost Trappers is we don't have any Capital like we don't have any external Capital which is untrue right because between zero and VC there are different types of investors and family and friends being you know a a big source of initial funding especially when you don't have anything Revenue generating yet so like I don't think people think enough about how it doesn't matter how small the shareholder is that's still a shareholder and when you want to sell the company every shareholder needs to sign and I've been in a position in the past where um you know a a family and friends investor and and while it's an investor I think we traded equity for work at that time and a lot of people do that but they never think about oh it's just you know 02 or one or whatever it is that 0.2% that you gave away will come and bite you if that person doesn't want to sign the document and that happened to us in the previous company where we trade to work for Equity um this like you know it that was a friend at the time but it was no longer a friend years later this person um held the equity under his company which he then sold to a public company without telling us so that percentage mattered so little to him they didn't even think about it didn't even offer it back to us or offer to sell it back to us and just just did it didn't think about it didn't talk to him for years when it came to signing those documents for the life of us we could not get that public company to respond and I I thought that because we had a dralon clause that the deal could just happen without a signature so two days before the deal was supposed to close my lawyer was like well we're missing the signature and I'm like well I can't get a hold of this person so can you just do the execute the drong Clause he's like what do you mean the deal is not going to close because even though you have a dral along clause you need to take that person or that company to court and have a judge say that everyone's getting the same deal before we can drink before we can actually drag this person along having a drag along claws at least in Canada doesn't mean you could just drag everybody along because these laws are there are natural laws in place to protect every shareholder so at that point I'm Sweating Bullets because I didn't know this so I had to go through like every channel to somehow find the mobile phone number of the CFO of that public tra publicly traded company and text them this solve story so that he would then go and sign those papers so it doesn't matter who the investor is even though even if it's a family and friends small investor a shareholder is still a shareholder and that's something to think about when you're joining an accelerator when you're trading equity for work right when you're taking a tiny check because you just need the money think about whether this is someone that's going to be on your side when you're going to sell that company because it will matter oh that's a tough tough dragong I'm I'm pretty that might be a Canadian thing only because I know when we had dragong problem we we had dragong RS in our uh previous companies and we had you know the ability to kind of just ignore the fact that they didn't sign they tried to push but it basically didn't come into play and there was also just so many Small Checks we take but that's I guess maybe that's unique to Canon or maybe our terms are a little bit different but that's that's tough and that's a very true whether it's drag or not um a reality to take into consideration I'm glad you're shared that with kind of raising Capital so you kind of mentioned earlier about taking capital and like getting smaller checks or work for you know work for E Equity you know type um you know deals how did you price them how did you you know negotiate it and kind of what was your mindset uh around accepting those those terms or drafting those terms yeah so I mean um I always I I'm always airing on the side of everything should be as vanilla as possible right because even though we're not raising Venture Capital today I I can't say there's a zero chance that we're ever going to go that route right maybe one day we'll decide okay well this is the path we want to go um and I don't want anything to be complicated and out of the norm um if we ever go that route so we've always drafted everything properly as if we were a company that is Raising Venture Capital um we use you know we used saves you know um you know convertible notes you know everything is documented as if we're raising from institutional investors I think that's the way to go right like we have you know Founders have investing schedules shareholders agreements um but the way that I've done it with e weinar is a little bit different than I've done it in the past um we do have family and friends and investors David who's my CTO co-founder and my life partner we wrote the first checks um everybody has to have the exact same terms and that's also because you know we're raising from family and friends it has to be like we don't want anyone to feel like they're being cheated or they're getting a lesser deal right um so everything's transparent every everyone's on the same terms if you can agree to those terms and you just don't you just don't come into the round um the very different thing that I did with e webinar um is we have number one we have a minimum so we have a 50k minimum because I don't want a big cap table right for for the reason that I just explained and I don't want like I want as little people as possible on my cap table I only want people who are on my side um I I only want people who like are our best friends like we we vacation with right because I I Envision a world where we can share our successes with friends and can have investor Retreats and all our friendss are going to be there and it's going to be you know one big party um and the major difference is the terms are structured such that this is a profit generating company which means Dividends are paid out according to your percentage of investment and not percentage of equity holding so you can have 1% but have 10% dividends entitlement because the idea that you have to wait until an exit to get your money back never really made sense to me and because we want to be profit generating because I'm not building this company to sell and because I don't intend to raise Venture Capital um I want to make sure that people can get their money back long before we actually sell the company and if we do sell the company then it would be kind of a cherry on top um and these are all people that we don't have a lot of people on our cap table but these are all people that are successful but not entrepreneurs like they're not going to go and start something else and these are people that are maybe in the later stages in their lives and their 40s and 50s and they're looking for passive income and I've sold this as a passive income company for them because this is going to be a passive income company for me so I want to give everybody involved the life that I Envision for myself um and hopefully we'll we'll get there sooner than later that's not something I hear often and it's a refreshing perspective to to hear in terms of you know dividend payouts cuz you know I've talk to Founders that hold other businesses but when they raised a little bit of outside capital and treading it more as a passive income opportunity which you know if you listen to Tik Tok and personal finance on YouTube it's you know all the r trying to get passive income and you know you're you're you're selling what people are buying um I guess what are some of the mistakes that you see other Founders make when trying to maybe raise friends and family rounds and trying to bring in uh you know either maybe some advisers or some people that can add value but in particular just that kind of that small round with the expectation that maybe they don't go out and raise a big round down the road I mean I think the number one mistake I see people people make is is having too many friends and family investors to start with like I I don't know how much much a $5,000 check can have on your business but I do know that that means a lot of signatures right that's the one thing I think about because I I feel like I have a bit of PTSD like selling my previous company and not being able to get signatures but you know when when things are good and you know you're selling a dream and everyone's happy like everyone that knows you wants to contribute a little bit right and of course you want that support and you don't want to turn them down and and you know insult them in any way but what you really want as a business owner is capital that makes a meaningful impact in your business right and so I think if you start the company by having a really big and confusing cap table if you ever want to raise you know Institutional Investor from institutional investors in the future it's a bit of a red flag right so I think you want to keep things as clean as possible and also I think it sets a bad precedence for people coming in because like one of the reasons why we had a minimum is because I don't want someone coming in and say well I want to put in 10,000 because this other person put in 10,000 why aren't you taking a small check from me right so I want to set a presidents at like this is not one of those companies where we'll take a check from anybody um but also it's almost like SE like self- selection right I only want people who can afford it because the number two mistake I see people make is they take money from people who can't afford it and they're they're almost pitching their company to friends and families as if they're pitching to an Institutional Investor which is not the same the first thing I tell my friends and family is you could lose this I could lose this so don't write me this check if you can't afford to lose it like assume you're not going to see this money for the next 10 years what would you do or assume you're going to lose it what would you do right so and and in the past I've had people who wanted to invest in our company but I knew they worked really hard for their money and I knew even if they told me yeah I don't mind losing this that it would make a big impact for their life if they did or taking that chunk of money away from them right now would make a big impact on their life so I've actually in the past turned down checks until we got to a later stage where I was comfortable taking that money from from a friend right so I think that's the the second mistake is like you're taking money from people who can afford it and investors and institutions like maybe it's okay to to do that but if it's your friends and family you should not put that you know put them in that in that position and I think a lot of people like when they need the cash like don't think about the impact that they could have on on someone else that is is just not as well off as as a company and and not only is that out of respect to your your friends or the other person that might be interested in writing that small check it again saves you the burden of responsibility down the road because things don't always work most things fail and and that fails that could kill the relationship you know and like hey I gave you that money and you lost it like uh it can turn things pretty negative pretty quickly and I think it's smart to have that level of foresight and respect for you know other people's money when you know not just taking anything and everything you can and you know one thing um I wanted just to add as a as some input for for our listeners is an alternative to kind of prevent the signature problem and the too small check problem assuming the the affordability is not an issue uh something like an founder Le spvs um where Founders can basically aggregate uh a bunch of Small Checks as one line item in the cap table kind of solving the too many people in in one um they on the cap table and then it's one signature it's by the founder and the founder writes sides it off so basically the advisors have agree to that they basically get no representation but they get a piece of the you know whether it's a dividend structure or payout or anything like that it goes through the SPV uh and gets distributed from that as opposed to having to be all individual line attributed back to the company so just a boot for thought for those the the other thing that you know when to to take note of when you're raising money from family and friends and you know and maybe even new funds right that are not used to investing in this type of asset you have to know that if they need that money and they've given it to you they are going to call you all the time to ask you when they're getting it back and that's happened to eu4 where um you know it's it's a person that you know you know wrote us a $100,000 check he's never invested in this thing before and then he just called me like every two months like asking me when I was going to you know when I expected to to sell the company and and then I felt really bad right and and I you know like it just wasn't a great it wasn't a great position to be in so something to think about when you're raising from like not like non-experienced investors is like that is a potential you know that that's a potential scenario that could happen um because they're they're thinking about like they're not really thinking about it as an investment but thinking about like almost losing it cuz you know in their Bank if they put this in like a GIC they could cash it out but now they've written a check to you like they maybe mildly regret it like low great regret and they just want it back so another reason why you'd want to like raise money from people who are either well off or like experienced yeah now uh focusing on credit investors that have exposure to private markets and understand that this money's gone for the foreseeable future especially in private companies 5 10 plus years is kind of the Baseline to expect and uh so sounds unfortunately you got a you kind of had the the the dealings and all the kind of negative experiences so I'm glad you're sharing so that hopefully we will take a uh take a lesson from your book and you know navigate those those checks a little bit more strategically and think about the longterm ramifications and the qualifications uh of what comes with that check well the reason why I had such interesting experiences I would say is because I was so desperate in my previous company right I just needed to make payroll and unfortunately that's what happens when you don't have choices right like I didn't feel like I could say no after being in survival mode for so long and finally this private investor agrees to write me $100,000 check and it just didn't matter at that time who they were it mattered that I made pay payroll and that I could breathe a little bit cuz not only could I like could I miss out on payroll I was also like not paying my own vendors so you know so I had not just my own like my own debt but I hadn't paid my lawyer for two years I hadn't paid my accountant for two years like these are people that keep my company running so unfortunately in those positions like you make you make quick decisions that may not be the best right for for for their company in the long term um and even thinking back now like I'm not sure like knowing what I know today if I could have made different choices because of where I was but hopefully having this conversation and and maybe someone listening um hopefully this conversation can help them think you know deeper into you know who they led into their company wow I really appreciate the level of transparency in cander in terms of EX say that cuz that that's a very valid point here it's one thing for us to kind of say oh don't do this but then yes when you're when you're kind of in the trenches and you don't have a lot of choices and someone's kind of giving you a Lifeline there were certain strings attached either you can not take that offer and die or you take that offer and deal you you live another day to suffer consequences down the road yeah yeah that's some valid input well uh you Melissa I'm curious for for Founders um to know kind of where can they learn more about you what you're doing if you have a podcast yourself do you want to kind of talk about that a little bit yeah um so where you can learn more about me just connect with me through Linkedin um my last name is spelled Quan Kwa an so that's Melissa Quan I actually post uh daily about my experiences bootstrapping three companies so if you you know ever want to learn about my War Stories or whatnot that's the best way to connect and um of course e webinar.com if you're wondering how e weinar can help you in your business uh but my podcast C profit Le um I mean I started it really to talk about you know talk about other success stories from bootstrappers um and invite other people to to share how they were able to grow their business without Venture funding and hopefully to inspire more Founders to know that there are different faces of success and that the only definition of success that matters is your own and not appearing on you know the cover of tech crunch um actually we're launching our season two um which is going to be focused on our own journey to a million so instead of inviting other Founders to talk about you know their bootstrap War Stories we're actually going to spend one episode um you know one topic per episode talking about you know or trials and tribulations growing to a million um around things like how to recruit on having no resources um mistakes we've made misconceptions about bootstrapping um you know customer horse stories you know things like that the the deao Bible bootstrapping it sounds like of you know what to do and not to do and you lessons learned from people that have already could have been in the trenches to Again part of the reason why I have my podcast is to to heal Founders know what's ahead so that they can start thinking about it because other people have already been through this you know there there very few stories that are completely original and unique you know everyone's kind of had their you know similar exposure similar experience and you know it's grateful that you you and your podcast are out there for Founders to know in terms of navigating the bootstrapping world and uh you know also just to take it as a genuine consideration I think every VC every founder that wants to be VC backed should just take a step back for at least a minute and acknowledge that there is an alternative and what that might look like if they chose that path and I think it's a challenge weth taking into which think a lot of companies did that kind of in the pandemic and post pandemic when the capital dried up uh how they get to how do they get to profitability has kind of been the big ask for a lot of BCS uh where it wasn't the case before it's grow at all cost now it's like get to break even get to profitability yeah profits cool again it's cool again and uh it's good you are profit profit enables opportunities um but Melissa I really appreciate you being on the show sharing your journey and you know sharing your advice with the founders that listening to fundraising to miss ified and it was nice to have a change in our typical you know programming and kind of hear your story today well thanks so much for having me again awesome appreciate it