#111: Bootstrapped Then Raised VC Funding Before Selling to Salesforce for $250 Million

Practical Founders Podcast

John Stewart created and sold an engineering services business, then grew a Salesforce integration services company before building some early software products. One of their software experiments allowed Salesforce customers to see and interact with their customer data on a map. When customers paid for it and revenue grew, he and his co-founder wound down services and focused on their mapping product.

MapAnything grew quickly to over $2M ARR as a bootstrapped software company, with some revenue-based financing from Lighter Capital to help test their growth plans. When they focused on field service route optimization and grew quickly, MapAnything raised several rounds of venture capital to grow even faster by focusing its sales and marketing efforts within the Salesforce ecosystem.

MapAnything reached $22 million in ARR before Salesforce acquired the company for $250 million. John stayed on with Salesforce for six months before moving on. John and a co-founder launched Fastbreak.ai three years later, a sports schedule optimization platform for professional and amateur sports leagues.

Quote from John Stewart, former CEO of MapAnything

“I tell founders most often that you really need to focus on sales and distribution. As a CEO of a startup in the tech space or SaaS, the only thing that really matters is revenue growth. Technology is technology. Even if you have unique IP right now, it won’t be unique soon enough.

“So you need to figure out your go-to-market motion. That’s the single most important thing. Revenue cures all ills. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in the company as long as revenue is growing. It’s all about revenue growth more than anything.”

Links

• John Stewart on LinkedIn
• MapAnything on LinkedIn
• Salesforce website
• Fastbreak.ai website

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