Topics / 🧑‍🏫 Founder stories

Founder stories.

First-hand accounts of how companies actually got built: the early bets, the near misses and what founders would do differently. Start with the most-read stories, or filter by revenue band to find founders at your stage.

230 resources from 162 founders

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Everything on founder stories

230 resources

From $0 to $2M in Annual Recurring Revenue

Guillaume Moubeche, Lemlist

🎥 Video Interview2020Bootstrapped

How I Went From Broke To Successful in 90 Days

Kevin David, Zonbase

🎤 Talk2020

Evolution of a role as a Founder CTO

Miguel Carranza, RevenueCat

✍️ Essay2020VC Backed

Lessons for early stage founders

Calvin French-Owen, Segment

✍️ Essay2020VC Backed

10+1 Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur Justin Kan

Justin Kan, Twitch

🎥 Video Interview2019VC Backed

From $1m to $2m ARR in 6 months with no fundings

Guillaume Moubeche, Lemlist

✍️ Essay2019Bootstrapped

365 Days of Growth: From 0 to $250k ARR Without Funding

Guillaume Moubeche, Lemlist

✍️ Essay2019Bootstrapped

Founder Stories: Ben Chestnut of Mailchimp

Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp

🎧 Podcast2021Bootstrapped

How we built a 1m ARR SaaS startup

Sarah Hum, Canny

✍️ Essay2020Bootstrapped

He Went From E-commerce & Course Creator to 8 Figure Software Entrepreneur

Kevin David, Zonbase

🎧 Podcast2021

From 0 to Cash Flow Positive

Timo Rein, Pipedrive

🎤 Talk2012VC Backed

The Revolut Story: Lessons Learnt From a Unicorn

Nikolay Storonsky, Revolut

✍️ Essay2019VC Backed

A Textbook Startup Success Story

Suhail Doshi, Mighty

🎥 Video Interview2018VC Backed

How A Marketing Internship Led To Becoming The 'Traffic Hacker' All Experts Turn To

Justin Brooke, AdSkills

🎧 Podcast2019

How Shopify Went From Startup to IPO

Tobi Lutke, Shopify

🎤 Talk2016VC Backed

Slacking Off

Stewart Butterfield, Slack

💬 Text Interview2018VC Backed

Building A Billion Dollar Data Company

Henry Schuck, Zoominfo

🎥 Video Interview2021VC Backed

Reed Hastings on Building a Streaming Empire

Reed Hastings, Netflix

🎥 Video Interview2015VC Backed

The Godfather of SEO

Rand Fishkin, SparkToro

💬 Text Interview2018Bootstrapped

From Uber Cab to just Uber

Garrett Camp, Expa

✍️ Essay2017VC Backed

How Daniel Became Goliath

Daniel Ek, Spotify

💬 Text Interview2017VC Backed

How We Built a Unicorn: The Story of Pipedrive

Timo Rein, Pipedrive

🎥 Video Interview2020VC Backed

From Day 0 to IPO: What Went to Plan, What Most Certainly Didn't

Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot

🎤 Talk2017VC Backed

How We Grew Our Time Tracking App To 10,000 Paying Customers

Jared Brown, Hubstaff

✍️ Essay2019Bootstrapped

Brian Cheskys improbable rise from bodybuilding at art school to building $30 billion Airbnb

Brian Chesky, Airbnb

💬 Text Interview2017VC Backed

Scaling Stripe

Patrick Collison, Stripe

🎥 Video Interview2015VC Backed

Highs, lows & lessons learned during Canva's journey

Melanie Perkins, Canva

✍️ Essay2018VC Backed

Want to Prove Patience Pays Off?

Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp

💬 Text Interview2018Bootstrapped

How I Invented Uber

Garrett Camp, Expa

🎥 Video Interview2016VC Backed

From Side Hustle to World’s Leading Email Marketing Platform

Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp

🎥 Video Interview2021Bootstrapped

Founder Stories: Alex Yurkowski, ClickUp

Alex Yurkowski, ClickUp

🎧 Podcast2021

Getting it Right the Second Time Around

Kathryn Minshew, The Muse

🎥 Video Interview2018VC Backed

Launching a Second Product

Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot

🎥 Video Interview2020VC Backed

How N26 became a $3.5 Billion Business After 298 Investor Rejections

Valentin Stalf, N26

🎧 Podcast2019VC Backed

Authentic Growth

Dustin Moskovitz, Asana

💬 Text Interview2018VC Backed

Starting and Scaling Product Hunt

Ryan Hoover, Product Hunt

🎥 Video Interview2017VC Backed

How Spotify Was Founded

Daniel Ek, Spotify

🎥 Video Interview2019VC Backed

Intercom Story by Eoghan McCabe

Eoghan McCabe, Intercom

🎧 Podcast2018VC Backed

From Snowboard Shop to Billion Dollar Company

Tobi Lutke, Shopify

🎧 Podcast2019VC Backed

Canva: Melanie Perkins

Melanie Perkins, Canva

🎧 Podcast2021VC Backed

Growing an Australian College Startup into a Global Unicorn

Melanie Perkins, Canva

🎥 Video Interview2019VC Backed

Starting and Scaling Gobble

Ooshma Garg, Gobble

🎤 Talk2016VC Backed

Entrepreneurship and Loneliness

Reid Hoffman, Greylock

🎧 Podcast2020VC Backed

The Pre-launch Strategy That Built MeetEdgar a 100k List

Laura Roeder, Paperbell

🎤 Talk2017Bootstrapped

From beta to €1 million ARR in 6 months

David Darmanin, Hotjar

✍️ Essay2016Bootstrapped

From a Basement to a Billion

Francis Davidson, Sonder

✍️ Essay2019VC Backed

My Journey as a Serial Entrepreneur

Stewart Butterfield, Slack

🎥 Video Interview2020VC Backed

Going Direct-to-consumer and Building a Community

John Foley, Peloton

🎥 Video Interview2020VC Backed

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