Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business
- September 12, 2024
- rohitbhargava
- Podcast
My guest for Ep197 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Paul Stovell.
Paul is the Founder & CEO of Octopus Deploy, a company he started as a “nights and weekends” project for 2 years before going full time in 2012.
The company was bootstrapped for almost a decade until 2021 when they raised USD$172.5M (roughly AUD$222M) from New York based Insight Partners which is the second largest VC funding round by an Australian company ever.
Octopus Deploy is now over 300 people and just crossed $100M in ARR.
I got to sit down with Paul at the Something Tech 2024 conference to do a live podcast interview and in this conversation we covered a range of topics including:
- Why more founders should consider bootstrapping
- Using customers as investors
- Balancing culture of striving for quality vs bias for action
- Why Paul decided to take on external funding and how it changed the business
- & much more!
Timestamps:
- 2:09 Paul’s Background
- 5:32 The origin story of Octopus Deploy
- 8:15 Balancing quality with speed
- 10:00 The tipping point where he went all in on Octopus Deploy
- 11:37 Competing with well resourced incumbents
- 19:12 The decision to take on investors
- 23:31 How the company changed after taking on capital
- 25:54 Operating as a profitable company
- 32:43 Attracting talent and testing for fit during the hiring process
- 40:08 How to ensure company values are upheld as you grow
- 45:10 Advice to founders just getting started
Our partners:
A big thank you to Michael Noonan, Bob Walker and Simon Galbraith for their help with this interview!
Also a big shout out to our partners for the show:
Scendar
Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com
Vanta
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Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/playbook to get access to this exclusive discount.
Links mentioned:
Paul’s links:
People mentioned:
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Credits:
Music: Paycheck
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