Buy a Startup for $1: The No-VC Growth Playbook

One of the fastest ways to build a meaningful company without VC isn’t starting from zero. It’s taking over something that already has customers, a product, and a real problem—then running it lean.

Don Pottinger did exactly that. He joined a startup as a developer, became CTO within months during a pivot, watched a messy cap table block fundraising, and then bought the company’s assets for $1 when the investor was ready to shut it down. After running it solo—doing product, support, sales, and marketing—he eventually sold the business in 2019.

This story matters in the US Startup Marketing Without VC series because it highlights a truth most founders ignore: ownership plus fundamentals beats funding plus chaos. If you want leads and revenue without venture capital, the playbook is simple (not easy): get close to the customer, market consistently, and keep the business operationally sane.

The $1 acquisition isn’t the point—ownership is

The headline is fun, but the lesson is more practical: you can end up owning a business when you’re the person who understands the product, the customers, and the economics better than anyone else.

In Don’s case, the investor’s decision was rational. The company had already pivoted hard, churn had been a problem, and raising capital became impossible because the cap table was tangled—former leaders still owned big chunks while the active operators (CEO/CTO) owned very little. In a lot of US startup ecosystems outside major hubs, investors don’t “admire the hustle” of complex structures. They just walk.

If you’re building without VC, the takeaway is blunt:

• Cap tables are marketing constraints. If you can’t finance growth and you can’t attract talent with meaningful ownership, you’ll stall.
• Control is a growth asset. Bootstrapping works best when decision-making is fast and incentives are aligned.

A bootstrapped startup doesn’t need a perfect story. It needs clean incentives and repeatable customer acquisition.

The pivot lesson: marketing can’t outpace product clarity

Kevy originally competed in the “send data from A to B” space (think early Zapier-style workflows). But churn was high, and leadership decided to pivot into an ecommerce-focused marketing platform.

That’s a classic moment where founders try to solve a revenue problem with a repositioning problem. Often the churn story is:

• The product is easy to try
• The use case isn’t sticky
• The buyer doesn’t feel ongoing value

So the pivot moved toward a more durable job: help ecommerce brands market to their customers in one place. That category can be sticky because the outcome is clearer (sales, retention, LTV). But it also creates a new reality: you’re now competing with well-funded platforms (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, others).

How to market post-pivot without VC

If you’re pivoting as a bootstrapped founder—or you’re taking over a “half-built” startup—don’t start by scaling paid acquisition. Start by making demand generation cheaper than product development.

Here’s what I’ve seen work for lean teams in SaaS and ecommerce tools:

1. Pick one narrow ICP and one wedge use case. “Ecommerce marketing automation” is too broad. “Win-back flows for Shopify brands under $5M GMV” is a wedge.
2. Build a small proof loop. One landing page, one demo script, one activation metric.
3. Run customer interviews like sales calls. The goal isn’t research. It’s commitment: trial, paid pilot, or intro to two other operators.

A pivot is only real when your distribution changes. Otherwise it’s just new code.

The hidden cost of venture: the cap table that kills momentum

Don described raising attempts that went well—until diligence. Investors liked the market and progress, but the ownership structure spooked them.

This happens constantly:

• Early investor took too much for too little
• Former founder still holds major equity but isn’t operating
• Key operators own single-digit percentages

From a growth perspective, this is deadly because it blocks the two things founders reach for when organic growth is slow:

• Hiring (you can’t attract strong people without meaningful upside)
• Fundraising (new investors won’t back a team with weak ownership)

A practical rule if you want “marketing without VC” options

Even if you think you might raise someday, operate like you won’t.

That means:

• Keep dilution low early (typical rounds sell 10–20%, not 50%+)
• Protect founder/operator ownership
• Avoid complicated advisor or ex-employee equity situations

A clean cap table is marketing insurance. It keeps your options open when you need to spend money to make money.

Going solo: the real bootstrapped job description

After the $1 acquisition, Don ran the company alone and hit the wall most solo founders hit:

• Keeping customers is hard
• Acquiring customers is harder
• Building product while doing support and sales is exhausting

But there’s a key insight here that’s very relevant for lead-focused startup marketing:

When you’re bootstrapped, your marketing system has to be simpler than your product roadmap.

If you’re the only operator (or one of two), you need a lead engine that doesn’t require daily heroics.

A lean marketing stack that fits a solo founder

If you want predictable leads without a VC-funded team, prioritize these channels in this order:

1. Lifecycle/referral loops (fastest ROI)
   • Add referral prompts at moments of value (“Invite a teammate”)
   • Ask for introductions right after a win
2. Partner distribution (cheaper than ads)
   • Integrations + co-marketing with adjacent tools
   • Agency/consultant relationships
3. Evergreen content (slow, compounding)
   • Use-case pages (not generic blog posts)
   • Comparison pages (ethical, factual)
   • “How to” templates tied to your product
4. Paid spend only after activation is strong
   • If onboarding is weak, ads just amplify churn

This is the kind of system that would’ve reduced the “do everything myself” pressure Don described.

Exit without hype: what a “life-changing” outcome looks like

Don sold Kevy in 2019. His description is important because it’s closer to reality for most bootstrapped founders:

• It wasn’t “never work again” money
• It was “change the trajectory of my family” money

That’s the median outcome worth optimizing for.

Bootstrapped exits often look like:

• A strategic buyer who can operate the product better than you can alone
• A buyer who already has distribution (sales/marketing muscle)
• A founder who wants to move on because the competitive landscape has shifted

In other words: you don’t need to beat Klaviyo. You need to build something valuable enough that a serious operator wants it.

The second act: why the next startup grew faster

After selling, Don co-founded a new business in language learning. It hit mid-six-figure ARR quickly after launch—helped by two factors that apply to every bootstrapped startup marketing plan:

1. A co-founder with distribution knowledge. Product is only half the job. Knowing the “knobs” (channels, timing, messaging) is compounding advantage.
2. Timing and tailwinds. Language learning over video calls surged during the pandemic era, and remote-first behavior stayed sticky.

Most founders underestimate how much faster growth gets when:

• You’ve been through the pain before
• You pick a market with momentum
• Your marketing is operational, not inspirational

The second-time founder advantage is mostly this: fewer fantasy projects, more systems.

People also ask: can you really buy a startup without VC?

Yes, but you typically buy outcomes—not ideas. The most realistic paths look like:

• Taking over a small SaaS where the founder is burnt out
• Acquiring assets from a company being shut down
• Buying a micro-business from a marketplace (SaaS, ecommerce, newsletters)

If you’re targeting a “no-VC” path, focus on deals where:

• The product already has paying customers
• Churn is solvable (not structural)
• You can run it lean while improving acquisition

What to do next if you want no-VC growth (and leads)

If you’re building in the US and you want startup marketing without venture capital, Don’s story points to a practical set of next steps:

1. Audit your ownership and incentives. If control is messy, growth gets messy.
2. Pick one lead channel you can run weekly. Consistency beats intensity.
3. Reduce churn before chasing scale. Retention is the cheapest marketing.
4. Treat operations as a marketing advantage. Fast support, clear onboarding, and simple pricing close deals.

The $1 acquisition makes a great headline. The real win was turning experience, product knowledge, and customer access into ownership—then using bootstrapped fundamentals to create an exit.

If you’re trying to grow without VC, here’s the question worth sitting with: what would your marketing look like if you had to run it profitably for the next 24 months?