Artificial intelligence is all the rage now, but founders like FriendlyData’s Michael Rumiantsau have been quietly building and scaling AI-driven companies for years.
Peter Valley started reselling books for profit after a failed dumpster dive. Years later, he turned the gig into Zen Arbitrage, a software for book resellers that he later sold.
Air HR co-founder Nick Holzherr had long used Upwork to build teams. So when it was time to sell his business, he hired on the freelance platform for M&A support, too.
Software company WaudWare launched in 1989. When two interested buyers approached 30+ years later, the founder brokered a deal — without prior experience or an advisor.
The founders of no-code customer onboarding software Userflow turned the adage “the more people you add, the less you work,” on its head, building to millions in revenue with a tiny team.