Getting out of the Way: Bootstrapping Netcore to Nearly $100 Million in ARR

In this week’s episode of The Breakout Growth Podcast Sean Ellis and Ethan Garr chat with Rajesh Jain, founder and managing director of Netcore Cloud. Rajesh bootstrapped Netcore into existence in 1998. Today, still without any outside investment, this global marketing technology company earns nearly $100 million in ARR. More than five thousand brands use Netcore to help create digital experiences for their customers with email, personalizations, nudges, and other tools. In India, the company has captured about 75% of the B2C email market, and they are a dominating force in many emerging markets around the world. But for the first ten years of Netcore’s life, growth was slow.  That changed when Rajesh realized that despite his early successes (he sold his first business for $100 million), he did not have the right leadership skills to drive Netcore to its full potential. So, with that self-awareness, he put ego aside and hired a CEO to lead the company’s next chapter.   That decision allowed Rajesh to provide leadership in different ways, and his story offers valuable lessons for anyone evaluating how they can make an impact in their roles. At the same time, Netcore was able to blossom. Today the company shares similarities with businesses like Braze and Twilio, offering services that help customers acquire, engage, and retain users.  So join Sean and Ethan as they learn from Rajesh’s thoughts on everything from the hidden value of conferences to “understanding customers’ vocabulary” and much more.  The Breakout Growth Podcast is also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-K_CY4-IrZ_auEIs0j97zA/featured We discussed:* Netcore, a B2B SaaS company for B2B companies (05:19)* Rajesh’s Early success and the “Midas Touch” fallacy (25:29)* Moving into Martech (41:44)* What a new CEO brought to the table (44:01)* “Don’t lose someone else’s money!” (33:38)* Growth through acquisition (38:40) And much, much, more . . . Get full access to Sean’s Substack at seanellis.substack.com/subscribe