Lessons from Bootstrapping to $7.5M ARR with 15 People in 9 Years

The Founder-Led Marketing Show

Philippe Léhoux is the co-founder of Missive, a collaborative email app bootstrapped to $7.5M ARR with no sales team, no paid marketing, and no funding.

It took six years to reach $1M ARR. Today, Missive is used by thousands of teams, and still run by just 15 people.

In this episode, Philippe breaks down the journey behind one of SaaS’s quietest success stories.

He shares how he ran two companies in parallel, got rejected by YC three times, and why building slow (and staying small) was the right call.

Topics we cover in this episode:

- Running two startups at once (and why it worked for years)

- Why Missive was never a “rocketship”—and why that was okay

- The moment they stopped chasing growth hacks

- Reaching $1M ARR after 6 years (and $7.5M today with 15 people)

- How COVID wiped out their first business overnight

- Building the AI features users actually need

- The emotional cost of founder life and how he managed it

- Why staying small is a competitive advantage

- How Missive turned email into a multiplayer product

Perfect for:

- SaaS founders building without outside funding

- Founders trying to avoid the “VC treadmill”

Connect with Philippe:

Philippe’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/plehoux/

Missive: https://missiveapp.com/

Connect with me:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnthormeier/

Website: https://www.project33.io/

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03CXzsZp7wdqIRVDcqPTFH

Chapters

00:00 Why Philippe prefers calm SaaS growth

01:40 Rejected by YC (3 times)

03:20 Building ConferenceBadge and Missive in parallel

05:45 What happened when COVID hit

07:10 Why they built Missive with no product-market fit

09:30 Growing to $1M ARR in six years

11:15 Staying small on purpose

13:20 The mental toll of long-term building

15:50 Hiring lessons from a 15-person team

18:00 Where Missive is at today ($7.5M ARR)

19:45 Why he creates content after 10 years of silence

21:00 Launching with the help of Jason Fried

23:10 Why email is still the ultimate workspace

26:30 Their approach to AI (and what they won’t build)

28:10 Final advice for calm SaaS builders

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