Founding Journey
Posts
How Tibo Louis-Lucas Bootstrapped To A $10 Million Exit

How Tibo Louis-Lucas Bootstrapped To A $10 Million Exit

And how he's building five products to $100k MRR

Michael Houck
December 12, 2024

Hey y’all — imagine raising VC funding for your second company and ending up in bankruptcy.

Could you bounce back and bootstrap your next one to a $10M exit?

But, first, he changed his approach and focused on shipping speed. He built and launched a product every month… until one took off.

If you use X or LinkedIn, you’ve probably heard of (or use) his products Tweet Hunter and Taplio.

We sat down to chat about what changed between his failures and exit, how he leveraged creator partnerships to grow, and how he’s now bootstrapping five new products to $100K MRR each, simultaneously.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or your podcast platform of choice.

As a reminder, each Thursday I interview a world-class founder about their unique paths to uncover tactical insights they've learned about how to fundraise, grow, validate, hire, scale, and lead teams.

Also, after each conversation I write up my candid takeaways. Become a member and grab them ✨ here ✨ along with lifetime access to my private founder community and more.

In our chat we discuss:

Founder Mode

(00:00) — Intro
(01:24) — Being a venture-backed founder
(02:41) — Learnings from early business failures
(24:00) — Identifying scalable business opportunities
(33:20) — Goal of getting 5 companies to $100k MRR in 3 years
(41:35) — How to unlock different versions of yourself
(43:02) — Identifying opportunities while building multiple companies

Growth & Scaling

(05:14) — The advantage of quickly shipping
(08:36) — Pros and cons of building in public
(10:28) — Alternatives to building in public
(11:24) — The moats that exist today
(15:31) — Utilizing micro-influencers for growth
(37:56) — Keeping 2-person companies at scale
(39:18) — Working alongside a complementary co-founder

Product & Acquisition Strategy

(12:55) — Platform risk
(18:32) — How founders can learn to kill products
(20:35) — Outsourcing to external developers
(21:57) — Buying small products
(25:26) — Deciding how much to invest into micro-acquisitions
(27:47) — Buying & selling assets rather than companies
(30:42) — Buying a tool to compete with the newsletter giants
(36:46) — AI’s unique software enablement
(44:08) — Deciding when and how to sell your company
(48:10) — How to decide how and whom to sell your company to

Advice & Insights

(49:04) — Founder Tips for Negotiating Deals
(49:57) — Bootstrapping vs. raising VC
(52:08) — The future of SaaS
(55:58) — Taking a job after being a founder
(58:21) — Founders don’t know when they need to quit

Rapid Fire

(59:18) — Who is one investor you’d recommend?
(59:46) — One thing you'd change about startups?
(1:00:20) — Advice for first-time founders?
(1:00:51) — Something you believe that most disagree with?

Listen now on Spotify, Apple, YouTube or your podcast platform of choice.

How We Can Help

Become a member to join the community, get access to all fundraising case studies and other deep dives, and more.

Content Creation

Let my team and I ghostwrite for your newsletter, X, or LinkedIn.

Growth

Grow your audience + generate leads with my growth service.

Fundraising

Share your round with hundreds of investors in my personal network.

Advising

I’ll help solve a specific challenge you’re facing with your startup.

Advertise in this newsletter to get in front of 60,000+ founders.

What'd you think of this episode?

Reply

or to participate.