#107: Brothers Sold Their Bootstrapped Software Company for $40 Million – David and Chris Sinkinson

Brothers David and Chris Sinkinson attended Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, when David learned of the problems maintaining the blue emergency phones on campus. He proposed a location-aware mobile safety app, so Chris built it himself, and it worked great.  AppArmor grew steadily to become the most popular university mobile safety platform in Canada and the US, and over 250 universities use it. With no outside investors, they bootstrapped the company to $6 million ARR with serious profits before selling the company to Rave Mobile Security for $40 million. They stayed on for another year in transition before writing a book and running a podcast called Startup Different. Quote from Dave Sinkinson, CEO and co-founder of AppArmor ”The biggest advice I give new founders is to ‘ignore that startup noise.’ Throughout our experience, we had lots of people who I loosely referred to as haters. People who said we’re "just a lifestyle business” or our idea is never going to work. One person literally told my cofounder brother Chris that we weren’t even a startup. “Just ignore those people. Don’t pursue validation from your peers. Instead, pursue validation in the market. A couple of years into the business, that realization was a big change that helped me stay on track. So, my advice for SaaS founders is to ignore the haters and enjoy the journey.” Links David Sinkinson on LinkedIn Chris Sinkinson on LinkedIn AppArmor on LinkedIn AppArmor website Rave Mobile Security website Startup Different podcast and book Sponsor This week’s podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region.  Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines, who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io. The Practical Founders Podcast Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app. Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.