In this episode of the Startup Ignition Podcast, we sit down with Evan Teshima, founder and former CEO of ForeUP, a massive bootstrapped success story in the golf tech SaaS space. Evan shares his incredible journey from meeting John in a BYU classroom, enduring 5-7 rapid pivots during an accelerator program, navigating a near-death convertible note crisis resolved by a $400,000 chess game and desperate calls to family, scaling to over 2,300 golf courses with only $200k in outside capital, and ultimately achieving a huge acquisition with tax-free gains. Hear war stories, lessons on founder-led sales, customer-funded growth, and the true reward of the entrepreneurial grind (including retirement on a beach in Hawaii!). (00:00:44) Met John in school, he was my teacher (00:13:59) My first idea was a toilet seat controlled by a lever (00:16:25) I literally stood up... mark my words, this is gonna be the best company (00:19:39) Literally you pivoted somewhere between five and seven major times in about three months (00:24:43) My stinking point of sale is a POS... This thing sucks (00:25:22) Literally the software looked like Oregon Trail (00:28:46) Judy Flint... she was our first customer (00:31:31) Now we'll buy it (00:37:08) They raised $200,000 and no more equity investment after that? Yes, period. (00:38:13) The hotels that we went to were the most janky hotels (00:42:56) If there's anything that we did right it was founder led sales (00:47:00) This note's coming due... valuation will drop from 1.5 to 500,000 (00:50:19) Per that paragraph, I'm notifying you of my intent to convert right now (00:53:14) Got some pretty nasty phone calls when they received those checks (00:55:03) I had to do the hardest thing of my life. I called my mom (00:58:29) Do you know what I thought? I go this guy's really good at golf...There's no way he's good at chess. So what happened? (00:59:55) Close to 400 grand (01:02:45) Was that an inflection point? Was that a tipping point for ForeUP, like getting Brendan in the CTO role? It was. (01:07:48) You built it to 10 million dollars in revenue basically off of... for a huge exit (01:08:03) The first 10 million for each of us tax was tax free (01:15:39) I'm on the beach with an umbrella drink in my hand right now (01:23:43) There was a company out there... raised $40 million... Had to fire. Sell. (01:24:13) Enjoy the journey Join our online academy for free: https://startupignition.com/academy Apply to be a guest on the pod: https://startup-ignition-podcast.paperform.co/ Follow John & Tyler: https://x.com/trich_ https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrichards/ Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StartupIgnition Follow on X: https://x.com/startupignition Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupignition/ Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@startupignition Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/6458758/admin/dashboard/ Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/startupignition/ #StartupIgnition #Entrepreneurship #Bootstrapped #SaaS #GolfTech #StartupLife #FounderStory #BusinessGrowth #Acquisition #VentureCapital #AngelInvesting #WarStories #ProductMarketFit #Pivot #ConvertibleNote #FounderLedSales #CustomerFunded #BYU #TechStartup #ExitStrategy
