Ep197 – Paul Stovell (Founder & CEO – Octopus Deploy) on turning a weekend project to a $100M ARR business

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram 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 Vanta helps businesses get — and stay — compliant by automating up to 90% of the work for the most in-demand compliance frameworks. And with over 300 integrations, you can easily monitor and secure the tools your business relies on.Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.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: Paul on LinkedIn Paul on X/Twitter Octopus Deploy Paul’s blog People mentioned: Sonia Stovell Michael Noonan Joel Spolsky Eric Sink Simon Galbraith Simon Beard Bob Walker Companies mentioned: Something Tech conference Insight Partners Credit Suisse Redgate Software Microsoft Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Paycheck Other channels: Find all of the links for the podcast on Linktree here https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep197_-_Paul_Stovell.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. 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