Stop Listening to Other People...
Welcome to the Dave vs. Startups.
The title is a bit harsh, I know, but it’s true.
Most people don’t have the drive, determination, and vision you do for the future. So when you share your big dreams with them, it’s only natural for them to poke holes in it, tell you it’s not going to work, and to call you crazy.
At the time, when starting my side project, my job was paying me $80K a year. Pretty comfortable living I’d say.
Then I quit it to pursue that side project full-time… and everyone called me crazy.
But years later, I sold that 'crazy' idea.
Here’s the shortened version of building & selling a bootstrapped B2B company (including all the massive failures):
I was making $80K at a big telecom company.
Comfortable job, good salary.
But my brother Chris and I were always working on side projects, testing out different ideas, seeing what would stick.
Most of them failed miserably, but AppArmor started getting traction.
An early sign it was working was that customers were paying.
The product solved a real problem in public safety.
When we hit $50K in annual revenue, I knew it was time to go for it.
I quit my telecom job, even though everyone told me it was risky.
Because we had data they didn't see:
Real customers, real revenue, and a market that desperately needed the solution.
But my first big mistake was trying to enter the US market way too early.
It was a disaster and I had to completely change our approach.
Taught me just because you have product-market fit in one region doesn’t mean you can just copy-paste that strategy everywhere.
But honestly, that wasn’t the worst of it.
The worst part was my team quitting all at once. Total culture failure.
I’d been so focused on growth that I completely forgot about the people behind it all.
That failure taught me something huge:
Leading with empathy is better than trying to be some "alpha" leader.
Investing in your team is way more important than chasing metrics.
Caring about people will get you further than obsessing over growth.
And the data backs that up.
The turnaround came when I stopped following all that conventional startup wisdom (and listening to other people).
No VC funding.
Instead, I focused on real customer needs, amazing service, and steady, sustainable growth.
AppArmor succeeded, not because we were the biggest or best-funded.
We won because we:
Actually solved real problems
Cared about our customers
Built sustainably
And learned from every failure along the way
After selling our company, I realized I don't need to be a unicorn.
The real opportunity is in building something solid, the 'mighty middle' ($2M-$50M companies).
And it all started with a side hustle.
Thanks for reading!
Dave