Bootstrapping·Kaveh Rostampor, Planhat

Planhat: Bootstrapping an Enterprise SaaS to 8-Figures ARR

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Kaveh Rostampor is the co-founder and CEO of Planhat, a customer success platform that helps businesses keep customers and grow revenue.

In 2014 Kaveh was working at a SaaS company, dealing with a bunch of challenges around reducing churn. At the same time, his future co-founder Niklas was trying to solve churn and retention issues using technology.

The two teamed up and started Planhat.

For the first six years, the founders bootstrapped the business. They had to be really careful with their cash, focusing on building a product that delivered real value.

Getting initial customers was also tough. It required building a deep understanding of potential customers' problems and relentless cold calling.

As Planhat started to grow, the founders faced a new challenge: trying to make both small companies and enterprise customers happy. They had to make tough decisions about which features to build to ensure their platform was powerful yet easy to use.

Despite these challenges, they kept pushing forward.

There were moments of doubt and financial strain, but Kaveh and Niklas stayed committed to their vision. They constantly improved their product based on feedback and steadily gained traction.

Today, Planhat serves hundreds of customers with tens of thousands of daily users, generating over 8-figures in ARR. Despite raising over $50 million, they haven't spent that money yet and continue to operate with a frugal, bootstrapping culture.

This episode is part of our Bootstrapping series.

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