John Sung Kim

Story of a Solo Non-Technical Founder with an $8B IPO, Followed by an Exit

John started Five9 with only $10k in his bank account and grew the company $20M annual revenue in 5 years. Five9 IPO’d in 2014 and now has a market cap of ≈$8B. John then started DoctorBase and exited it to Kareo in 2016. He is now on a mission to build the #1 offshore software development team, JetBridge.

Episode Description

e2 podcast: growth journeys from emerging ecosystems to global markets.

John started Five9 with only $10k in his bank account and grew the company $20M annual revenue in 5 years. Five9 IPO’d in 2014 and now has a market cap of ≈$8B. John then started DoctorBase and exited it to Kareo in 2016. He is now on a mission to build the #1 offshore software development team, JetBridge.

What’s in this episode?

1) Getting to $20M ARR as a solo non-technical founder

2) Vulture capital approach in the beginning of 2000s

3) Resigning from your own company and watching it reach $8B at the public markets

4) Why John moved from enterprise SaaS to health tech

5) Deep dive into the integration problem in health tech

6) How John beat his competitors with only a fraction fo the capital

7) Tips for entrepreneurs starting in Eastern Europe