Bootstrapped to $5M ARR, Then Brought Investors on Board After All (SaaS Bootstrapping Playbook)

Can You Build Enterprise Software Without Outside Capital?

William Barkawi pulled off something rare in enterprise SaaS: he bootstrapped ClearOps to around 5 million ARR and up to 60 employees — without investor money, financed instead by customer money. In conversation with Fabian, he explains how that worked, why he eventually brought a corporate VC on board anyway, and what enterprise sales really looks like in practice.

From Consulting Projects to a Product Company

ClearOps didn't start with a finished product. The founding story begins in after-sales business within mechanical engineering. Early on, William found three industrial corporations willing to co-finance the development of his platform. Those early customer projects became the foundation of what ClearOps is today.

The mechanism behind it: development work was billed with a markup of 20 to 40 percent. That markup financed the build-out of the core product — and at the same time acted as a natural brake on excessive customization, since expensive one-off requests became less attractive for customers themselves. Until 2023, the company ran with a remarkably lean team: 15 developers, one product manager, and the founder himself. Everything else was deliberately kept to a minimum.

The Shift to Pure SaaS

At the end of 2023, William made the decisive move: away from the services business and toward a pure SaaS model. From that point on, there were no more special arrangements for individual customers, and existing contracts were adjusted accordingly.

Since then, customization only happens as a top-up — following one clear principle: whatever might also be relevant for other customers becomes part of the standard product. Implementation partners now handle the operational rollout at customer sites, while ClearOps itself focuses on product development and the licensing business.

"Sales Is a Numbers Game"

For William, enterprise sales comes down to one thing above all: it's a numbers game. Positive signals from a pitch meeting don't mean a deal is closed — after that come procurement and legal, and that's where it's really decided whether a deal actually happens.

He also describes enterprise sales as explicitly a team sport. In one deal with an industrial corporation, eleven people from different departments sat at the table on his own side — a good illustration of how complex and cross-functional these sales processes get in practice.

When it came to hiring a VP Revenue, William focused on four things in particular: market knowledge, seniority, the ability to build a team, and whether the chemistry with the founder himself was right.

The Lonely Side of Founding Solo

William speaks openly about the downsides of being a solo founder. His assessment: being a solo founder is "a very lonely position" — if he were to start again, he wouldn't do it alone.

He names his biggest mistake as going eight or nine years without openly talking to anyone about the challenges his company faced — out of fear that it would make him look too young or inexperienced. A lesson many founders will likely recognize in themselves.

Why an Investor Came on Board After All

After years of bootstrapping, William ultimately decided to bring in an investor — though not a classic financial investor. Instead, he chose Hitachi Ventures, a corporate VC. His reasoning: a corporate VC thinks more entrepreneurially, understands the relevant business units, and brings a different perspective on the business than a purely financial investor could.

The conversation also covers how much capital ClearOps raised, the three scenarios they weighed in that process, and the vision William is pursuing for ClearOps: a connected supply chain as a platform — built on the clear hypothesis that this is how new customers can be won sustainably.

For anyone wondering how to build an enterprise SaaS business outside the usual VC-driven growth story, this episode offers a very concrete playbook — mistakes included.