Iuliia Shnai and cofounder/husband, Marc Seitz, bootstrapped Papermark to $3 million in ARR in 28 months, with a team of two. Three years before that, she was making $2 an hour and posting publicly to ask strangers whether she should keep going.
In this episode, Iuliia and I get into the years before any of it worked. A funded company that died after three pivots, a team of ten she let go one person at a time, and more than twenty attempts at building something that stuck.
We also get into the tweet that forced Papermark into existence over a single weekend, how they run a $3M company with two people and a few agencies, and why she still thinks plenty of founders should raise venture capital even though she never will again.
This is a conversation about what it takes to keep going when nothing is working, and what happens to you when it finally does.
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(01:04) What success looked like during her PhD
(02:10) The vending machine and her father's condition
(03:45) Why she walked away from academia
(05:38) Living on $1,500 a month for years
(07:40) "I suck at raising money"
(07:54) Why confidence decides who gets funded
(10:44) Raising money after she stopped caring
(11:32) Asked for 30% for $300K
(14:08) Letting go of a team of ten
(15:55) Why she never took a break
(17:22) Ten products in a single year
(18:50) Two weeks of work, ten likes
(23:19) What kept her going through it
(25:01) The $2 an hour post
(26:18) The tweet that forced Papermark out
(28:53) What it feels like when something works
(30:03) No line between work and home
(31:44) Running $3M with two people
(33:46) You never stop living like before
(37:05) What drives her now versus then
(41:09) The next milestone, and getting there
(43:59) "Success doesn't interest me anymore"
Show notes:
Connect with our host:
- Follow Melissa on LinkedIn where she shares stories & lessons from her founder journey weekly.
- Connect with Melissa at melissakwan.comand subscribe to 'your founder next door', Melissa's weekly newsletter on what it's like to build a company without an abundance of resources and friends in high places.
- Follow @themelissakwan on Instagram and YouTube where she shares short videos of business advice and other truth-bomb sound bites.
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