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  • Podcast
  • Tom Glason
  • 04 Sep 2025

Making The Grade Podcast: Bootstrapping Agorapulse to over $20M ARR with Emeric Ernoult

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Start-up headlines are often dominated by fundraising announcements and the latest valuation.

But the Venture Capital route isn’t the only option or the best to take. 

 

In this episode, we’re joined by Emeric Ernoult, Co-Founder & CEO of Agorapulse, one of Europe’s most successful bootstrapped SaaS Founders.

 

Emeric is a serial entrepreneur and has seen Agorapulse through several pivots and international expansion, all while bootstrapping. 

 

This often painful journey has come with its fair share of lessons – some of which Emeric shares with us in today’s conversation. 

 

This is definitely not a highlights reel, so if you’re currently going through the trenches or facing a pivot, this episode is one you don’t want to miss.

Episode Chapters:

03:37 – Building Agorapulse from the ashes of a previous business
07:20 – The signs to know when it’s time to pivot
13:31 – Bootstrapping vs VC funding – the hard truths
17:44 – Understanding VCs beyond the money
23:25 – The Do’s & Don’ts of international expansion
27:28 – Growth metrics that actually matter
34:07 – How AI is transforming data-driven growth

Want to listen to the full episode?

 Listen here: 

🎙️ Apple Podcasts 

🎙️ Spotify 

🎙️ YouTube

🎙️ Simplecast

Enjoyed this episode or have a guest suggestion for us?

We’d love to hear any feedback you have for us and any suggestions or guest recommendations you may have. Simply get in touch with our production team at [email protected]

Patrick Coleman

Patrick Coleman

Co-founder & CEO, QStory

“ScaleWise has transformed our go-to-market approach enabling us to implement best in class Account Based Sales Marketing strategies that deliver high-quality pipeline consistency”

Matt Jones

Matt Jones

Head of Go-To-Market, EvaluAgent

“Having valuable expertise ‘on tap’ from ScaleWise has been pivotal in accelerating the growth of Evaluagent”

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Tatjana Hayward

Communications & Business Operations Lead Senseforce

“ScaleWise coaching had a big impact right from the start, helping us to execute a much more effective marketing strategy whilst implementing best practices throughout our sales & marketing funnel. ”

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