Valley of Doubt

The Octopus Deploy Story: Building to $80M ARR Without VC

Paul and Sonia Stovell bootstrapped Octopus Deploy for a decade before taking investment from Insight Partners. The company now does $80M in annual…

Oct 26 • 

Scott Handsaker

1

Phil Bosua on Reinventing the Light Bulb

Phil Bosua went from electrician to founder of one of the most successful Kickstarter campaigns ever. Then he lost control of his own company. Here's…

Oct 5 • 

Scott Handsaker

3

September 2025

Taking Buildkite from a Side Project to a Global Company

How an Australian developer turned his frustration with CI tools into a 13-year journey that redefined developer tooling.

Sep 7 • 

Scott Handsaker

6

3

1

August 2025

From Bug Bounties to $100M Exit: The Bootstrapped Journey of AssetNote

How two Australian hackers built a global cybersecurity company without taking a single dollar of VC funding

Aug 26 • 

Scott Handsaker

2

GDPR Took Half Their Revenue But Made Them Stronger: The Lexer Story

How Aaron Wallis started his SaaS platform from his bedroom and survived GDPR killing half his revenue to go global.

Aug 18 • 

Scott Handsaker

4

July 2025

From Corporate Life to Cybersecurity Founder

Building Avertro through cofounder drama and a financial crisis.

Jul 27 • 

Scott Handsaker

A Founder's 20-Year Journey Through "Compound Stupidity"

How Scott Julian raised VC, got fired, but then ended up buying his company back.

Jul 20 • 

Scott Handsaker

3

The journey from University spinout to exit

How QuadMetrics went from an academic idea to a sale in less than 15 months.

Jul 13 • 

Scott Handsaker

2

Building a global cyber business from Australia

How Vaughan Shanks built Cydarm into one of the world's best case management systems.

Jul 6 • 

Scott Handsaker

2