How Voxpopme CEO Andrew Barraclough grew Voxpopme to $11M revenue and 240 customers in 2025.

guys watch out for Vox pop me they're Capital efficient raising just call 15 16 million bucks to grow revenues to 10 million so they've been efficient obviously working with a lot of different groups of providers work sidea funded them with 750,000 bucks at founder path on a 24-month term but more importantly we were able to work with the chairman of the board and Lonnie and the go forward CEO Andy to reset some of the equity chunks of the business to incentivize the go forward team Andy back in day one in 2012 owned only 2% of the company we wanted to get him up to you know where he needs to be now as the go for CEO and we weren't able to do that without him and Lonnie's support on the board the full story was a good one enjoy the episode so uh we're thrilled obviously with Annie Andy and Lonnie today they're running a company called Vox pop me and we first started speaking in terms of founder path and Vox pop me guys this is crazy all the way back in February actually February 7th was my first email in my email inbox but why don't you introduce yourselves really quick Lonnie what's your role at box po Me Andy what's your role yeah I'm chairman of the board I've been on the board now I think around four years five years so yeah so that's my role is to do what Andy tells me to do Andy something like that um yeah my yeah my R is now CEO I was founder and originally CTO at box pop me and then moved into the CEO role about seven months ago so um yeah it started off in uh yeah end of 2011 is when we kind of originally founded the company so been with ever since and take us through a bit of the sort of company story after you give a a teaser on what the product does because you're in a very exciting space Andy how would you describe the product yeah so we work with uh um kind of large businesses Fortune 500 helping them really understand their consumers a lot better um through through video so companies doing research either onetoone interviews focus groups similar kind of setting to what we're in now or launching video surveys and connecting with their consumers to understand their their thoughts towards Trends uh spending habits maybe new product ideation right throughout the kind of research flow and really helping them to analyze that at scale and understand their research um centrally as well across the company and drive kind of customer empathy and and and change within the business so it's uh yeah it's been super exciting Journey from the start and initially kicked off um with the idea of uh yeah we all had our phones in our pockets and everyone was getting more comfortable recording video and how could we connect Brands to you know to people and built an app and launched it that way as as the kind of first kickoff point uh and and and Grew From There understanding the kind of research space more and more from a couple of you know technical Founders who didn't come from from market research originally so we've learned a lot along the way I want to go back and learn about day one and your co-founders and the original team and then Lonnie getting involved Etc uh before we do that though Andy I don't want to bury the lead here are you guys comfortable sharing what revenue is today or Revenue range how have you guys scaled yeah so uh total revenue wise we're kind of sitting at around the 10 million Mark um we primarily AR revenue from that it's kind of about an 8020 split um and uh and and yeah kind of um you know I think uh looking at a few interesting opportunities moving into this following year as well um so closing out this year and we can kind of get onto that story a little bit in in a in a while as to how we kind of progressed our relationship but yeah looking forward to a good year of expansion into a into a new territory moving forward next year as well so us back to day one when did you guys write the first line of code for the company and Andy how did you decide to split Equity with your co-founders uh see yeah I mean it was an interesting um start to the company so I was actually working with uh guy who founded the company with Dave KS um and I was working as a technical director at his company to begin with and then we started was this by the way sorry uh this was 2012 so yeah about 2011 2012 joined him and that company was uh helping to bring in seed investment for um you know we we'd have people coming with ideas they wouldn't have their technical background um they'd be looking to fund and so we were kind of incubating um product startups from that point um we'd had some that ended up being pretty successful at the back of it others that were uh very it was very hit and miss and so when we came up for the idea um around video is and you know thinking about how we can connect with Brands through that um we decided to kind of split off our our own way and kind of took some of the learnings that we' had from how the companies had been formed through that process and that's how things worked out there so Equity split was actually quite interesting because we we kicked off with um so first lines of code I I was writing in the kind of when would it have been the November 20 2012 I think it was um and uh and so because we had these Angel Investors that were already familiar with everything that we were doing we we kind of went straight into that route and actually did did some fundraising pretty early uh and and yeah that's kind of and took a a yeah Equity split based on that and a few of the few of the roles that we kind of kicked off the company with at the time are you comfortable sharing Andy sort of like percentages there you know Dave was about X perent you were about y percent investors were about Z percent uh yeah I mean it was so at the time it was interesting because it was we we'd actually formed it with a with a a number like a number of people that we decided to kind of kick off from who were originally in the the the F the you know the previous company and so at the at the time like as a percentage mine was pretty pretty low I think it was around like two three% um which was um yeah uh so there was a few of us that took that amount and actually a lot of people dropped off within you know probably within the first year um and so I I was kind of always super passionate about everything that we were doing and have you know stuck at it for the long haul because I've been excited about the technology that we've been building and and the opportunity space that we've been in as well so kind of probably at a bit of a lower end from what you typically see within you know maybe some you know typical products are startups as well from an equ standpoint well you know 23% in 2012 now 12 years later you're the go forward CEO you're the leader of the company uh we'll talk about Equity later on but Lonnie let's introduce you to the story when you came in and you said let me look at the product let me look at the the team let me look at the equity split what were your first thoughts yeah yeah so we were at the time I was president of a company called in moment a customer experience platform and we were growing rapidly and competing against some of the big CX platforms out there like the qual tricks the medallas and you know those types and so we needed something that was going to differentiate us uh even further and we started talking about video as an executive team our country manager in London called me one day I was on my way there and he said I found the company I found the company we need to talk to and they're good people they're good humans and fit our culture you you wanted to acquire them at the start no we just wanted to we didn't know we didn't know if it was an acquisition or if we were going to just integrate you know the technology Andy just walk you through into the platform for um so I went to London had a meeting there and then uh one of the co-founders uh with Andy flew to Salt Lake and we met pretty much all day poor guy we had 30 people in the room and just him pitching um you know kind of what Andy just walked you through so then I had a chance to meet Andy and meet the team and we love the technology and so we were one of the first back then to integrate video into our CX platform and um and through that we you know created a relationship um and just continued to work together for for a number of years and then eventually I that H that meeting in Aspen when was that yeah gosh Andy can you remember when that was 17 yeah it was probably something around there yeah yeah I think so late 16 early 17 and kind you know it was cutting edge too at that time still cutting edge but it was cutting edge and it had great you know sex appeal to it and we were getting all kinds of meetings with the Nikes of the world and you know it was really a lot of fun and then again trying to figure out how we were going to integrate that in an elegant way into the platform and So eventually I stepped out after 11 years at in moment um and wrote a book and doing some things like that and then um Andy and and team came to me and Dave came to me and said hey we'd love to have you on the board and this was just right before covid if I recall and we had the team over from the UK and I remember that board meeting specifically because as soon as everybody was getting back on a plane we saidhe we might want to talk about this Co thing it's been about 10 or 15 minutes talking about that of course we all experienced it together around the world um so yeah so I've been on the board and then I'm chairman of the board now for a number of years and I just love the first and foremost I love the team Andy Andy's leadership I've always appreciated and um clearly how many folks today are full-time we what we have 70 around 60 60-ish now 60-ish yeah you know and so we've in the last couple years we've really managed you know costs and they've been on a path to profitability and now you know everything's really starting to turn with Andy's leadership and you know actually starting to invest back into the company which is really exciting and so yeah I just had great belief in in uh in this company's opportunities and growth and and um they work hard and and uh you know they I always say every day with Andy or the team is a is a good energ day you know they're they're not downers they they have Smiles on their faces and they move forward and I think in today's world as hard as everybody works that's a big deal hey folks if we haven't met yet my name is Nathan ladka I launched and sold my first software company back in 2015 and went on to write a book about it which you guys made a Wall Street Journal bestseller purchasing over 30,000 copies thank you so much for that after the book I launched this show and went went on to create founder path.com I raised a large fund to do non-dilutive deals with B2B software Founders so far we've invested in over 400 software Founders totaling $150 million here in 2024 we're doing three to four New Deals per week so if you're looking for Capital and don't want to give up Equity go sign up at founder path.com for free to get your offer all right let's jump into the interview and Andy's cutting up the code he's the product guy he's in there doing the work and now it's just like okay now you're CEO now you're talking to customers too right you're doing all the customer calls right are hanging out with the customer team so that's exciting I don't want to skip over a key part of the story though Lonnie so you joined the board in 2019 I want to understand sort of how you guys thought about Equity early on and what the board structure looked like when you joined was it 2 three 5 seven people what was the board composition we had what we see Andy what do we have I think we had six okay time roughly and um yeah I think you know even back then as Andy referenced you know his own Equity there was always a con ation about it within the board and within the group um and wanting you know to get more and just with the makeup the more money we were taking on course solution was starting to happen and how much had you guys raised Andy at that time so that time we were probably um so we went through I mean I guess we were probably somewhere between the 15 and 20 Mark at that point yeah y this series a in 2019 was with origin Ventures I think for about 9 million right something like that yeah yes we had we had uh we originally yeah raised some funds through Mercier and Then meria followed on with Origins at that round and then uh and then and then a stage later as well so so mercy and origin have been fantastic Partners based on everything you guys have told me uh I've had the chance to chat with I think one or two of them and was really impressed but but I guess Lonnie when you joined the board and this there was sort of all this floating idea on the board agenda of like hey what should the equity split look like for the go forward management why wasn't sort of anything like like you know we obviously push that when sper paath came in but why do you think that didn't happen ahead of time or before that you know I think that at that time just with the Investments that were coming in there was a lot of protection of those Investments and there was some Equity that was being you know rolled out but not to the point or level you guys had recommended in an effort to raise you know the the capital with you and so there there definitely was a push from the leadership team I think we just had some some level of um protection from the board at that time and saying hey let's let's take everything we've done here and invested and let's move forward and let's really get this thing growing and so I think there was just a delay I don't believe it was ever um we don't want to give more it's just let's now that we're on the playing field you got the equity let's see how you play I think that was pretty much the deal during that time and and I think it's always tough as well because you're going through those stages of trying to race and and at the time I think we conc we were concentrating so much on what we wanted to do with that within the business we wen't necessarily like thinking about it from our perspective at that early stage when we were going out to do that race and that's something that chat to a lot of the other Founders and things having that intention to go in so you've had those expectations set up front and so I think we were often coming out the back of those conversations and then trying to negotiate for things and it becomes becomes more difficult to do at that stage because you've gone through all the excitement of everything come out the other side so you know things just kind of you know nudged on and nudged on at that time and it wasn't through uh yeah anyone trying to um you know do anything unto or bad towards us it was it was just the makeup of like how we went into that I think that's something that I've definitely learned you know through that time and I've and I've I've heard from other Founders who have gone through same same kind of struggles and had to be more purposeful in that at later stages and Nathan I think to the question too later on you know I'd say in the last three years um I remember one of the meetings I had specifically with one of our investors and you know the tone was now changing into what do we need who do you need who do we need to make sure you know it's still flying the plane um so we had those conversations obviously Andy was at the top of that list and we had a c couple of other people um and so we you know there was an openness to it and with both of our lead investors actually they were saying okay we've done a lot of work you know and we've made some progress clearly on the profitability side we've made some significant process but now how do we take this to the next level and so you came in you know sometime after that so I think the appetite was open even more and we were talking about percentages and you know what could we do for Andy and and you came in and and blew that out of the water a positive way I think yeah we look so picking up at that part of the story from founder path's perspective you know when we got the original data room from you guys there was a couple things number one we loved the business we know the space pretty well we know some other m&a activity in the space and I also know the other products in the space really well and when I got the product tour and talked to one or two of your customers I said whoa this product is already feature parody with much larger companies in the exact same space these guys just got to get sales and marketing done and right and you're going to see the growth and you're seeing that now but one of the things the biggest risk we saw back in February when we were diling the Vox po me deal despite love in the product was and and I'm going to generalize here because I don't remember the exact numbers but the when we when I asked Andy and Lonnie you hey what is the go forward management team who's going to take this thing to the next level and you guys listed you know your key names right and there were several of them and I then went back to my team and I looked at the cap table and I sort of looked at how much Equity those names had and I don't know what the exact number was but it was something I want to say it was like maybe something between like eight and maybe 15% of sort of the this was the group that you guys said was going to change the company and drive off future growth and they were already diluted down to like 8 to 15ish percent and it was something on the order of like four to nine people right and my guys I want make sure I'm not misspeaking was something like that right I think that's right yeah yep yeah yeah I think that's right yeah it was right in that range and so I saw this as an opportunity I said ah the board doesn't necess maybe the board wants to put in money maybe they don't or the the the investors I said but we founder paath can align with management here and use our Capital coming as a forcing function to get a board resolution done to reestablish a new ESOP pool and then reissue those shares however the board wants to the go forward management to increase their Equity when we proposed that Lonnie Andy what was the internal communication like at the board level and the management level what were you guys thinking you know we well what I was thinking and and Andy I'd let you talk to this too but what I was thinking was refreshing how refreshing is that you know you're talking to an investor that actually wants to put more Equity back in the hands of those that are going to take this to the next level and how do we do it and I knew at that time we have a a very uh I would say communicative and cohesive board you know it's not they're here to support we may not get everything or the company at that time might not get everything they want but they're open to it and so we had created really nice culture with the board prior to that I think we had a little more of a hostile culture with the board and and um maybe a uh typical type old school board but this one is has been very supportive so uh I thought it was refreshing I believe when Andy you know and I started chatting he thought it was refreshing so I started working on the board side of it with the investors um and just you know open to the idea so if you go back to that three-year period we' had already started saying hey we need to get more what you were talking about was more than what I had um at least suggested to the board so I thought it was refreshing um so as we got into it we had one board meeting um where I was still I stepped in for a period of time as acting CEO um in transition you know as we went through a couple of changes and I we had proposed as a executive team something different in in terms of looking at founder path and basically got the nod to go ahead and move forward in continuing to talk with you guys and so I think and I'll stop there and let Andy take it from there but we had it you know it was a really refreshing approach uh and then we were geeking out a little bit Nathan about you personally and the work that you've done in your company and how you do it and your podcasts and your knowledge and you know so we were kind of communicating back and forth with everybody and I think everybody was was uh really eating that up so Baron I'll let you speak to it Andy yeah and I think I think that's yeah it's right and I think it was obviously kind of there were conversations that yeah Lonnie would have with the board you know uh on one stream of things and kind of I was thinking about the kind of broader team as well um but yeah I think it was the combination of um the excitement of kind of working with with you and the team at founder paath and and kind of yeah you you have knowledge in the area this the the work that's going on there it's like how can we learn from that and help the team bring the team Along on that Journey as well um and so yeah it did open up the chance to have that opportunity and I guess an outside perspective coming into it which maybe we hadn't had before right because the conversations are all happen internally or from within the investors's you know own you know meetings that they're having and things like that having an outside perspective coming into that and saying hey this is really where it should be um you know help to kind of facilit those conversations moving forward and get us into a better spot yeah it was Fresh So Fresh is a good word fresh is a good yeah so just for you guys listening on the podcast basically what we effectively said and I'm sort of paraphrasing and summarize here but we basically said hey look we'll fund the business with a million or million and a half or whatever it is uh but at at the funding date we also need to see a board resolution that establishes a new 10 15 whatever it was ESOP pool and a chunk of that ESOP pool immediately be reallocated sort of to management go forward and we were able to sort of bring all these things together and get it done Andy Lonnie one of the key pieces of the story that we skipped over but it happens to so many Founders and you never read about in The Press because everyone is really shy and they're not sure how to talk about it in a positive way anytime you have more than one co-founder and a company's been around for more than 10 years you're going to have co-founder conflict right and doesn't have to be bad conflict you're just going to have diverging interests and diverging priorities and eventually you're going to maybe have one co-founder that leaves the business so you have a big chunk of equity that we call non-operational which you know maybe they it maybe they don't that's besides the point but you guys have only said really great things about the founding team there was never anything negative mentioned just the fact that diverging priorities talk a little bit about sort of how the company ended up with so much sort of equity non-operational sort of outside the business and why that happened yeah I think it was so I mean when we yeah me and me and Dave kind of start start off the business and and very early on we had another guy uh Tom Williams who joined us um kind of five six months into the business and so we we made him a found her as well and and kind of saw it as you know a great kind of unit between us in order to kind of Drive the business forward uh Tom was focused purely on the revenue side Dave is CEO and me from a a technical and product side um and we always you know as I said like the the the those initial years and everything it was like it was it was a lot but it was like we had great fun doing it and everything but it's um Dave then moved to the over to the us because we realized that we've got a huge opportunity there and that gave us a good split of like someone Revenue focused in both you know both areas um it was great because at the time IM actually gave us some office space at their office in order to to sit ourselves in in a spot in the US try to keep it close yeah yeah smart smart um but I think yeah like as as as time went on yeah there are different approaches and different thought processes and everyone's kind of coming at it with a slightly different perspective on things um you know and and it definitely there's you know there's there's tension that can build there between Founders and I said it's like it is it's it's a long journey to go through uh and not have those tensions and you know and and those things happen so and it it the you know Tom had left the business during covid his time he kind of you know it was um I said it's it's a long journey for anyone to go through and you've got to be like all in and and and they've got to the same point where he you know he he felt like it was his time to move away from the business as well um but you know together we' driven you know driven that business forward and done done a lot um and so you know I think it is you know everything kind of is is deserving to those folks and you know I was literally texting back and forth with with Dave just prior to this uh to this call as well so you know we went through a tougher period definitely um and have kind of built things back up but it's uh it's it's great to now kind of have that you know external support as well from those that were in the business and and that continues to drive forward same with previous CFO be seeing him out in Park City and and kind of extends your network and your reach into other areas as well so although they're not within the business like there's always someone else to call on and it's great to be in that position because it could so easily Go a different direction I think with with when these things happen and I'll just add Nathan if I may um a little color to that as well it followed Andy all the way through that I remember all those days Andy as we were going through it and I think all the way back to Tom you know Tom had um felt like he had run his course with um what he had contributed to the company what was Tom he was the CFO C cro okay cro yeah yeah and I think you know there's those different stages of the company where you know a founder or an executive comes in and says okay I've taken it from zero to 10 or whatever the case may be and who's going to take it to 10 to 20 and what does that actually mean and I think that's part of what we saw and then when Dave um decided to step away from the company it was good for his own health um he had some other ideas and recognized I think respectfully that maybe you know there was some different leadership that was needed to move on um from there and then also the CFO at the time um within a 30-day period or so roughly it also kind of come to that same conclusion I think the message of that is is that that's why culture is so important and you know uh working with teams closely is because we work hard and and it can wear people down you know over time and and both of those individuals um actually all three of those individuals are are you know succeeding and flying and doing different things and Dave just started a new company and he's excited about it and you know and everybody um communicates and connects but it was time even for me to step aside and step back into the chairman Ro let Andy go and Andy has just taken things in the last seven months you know to a new level so it's it's I feel like a proud dad but it makes me feel old he's done all this by himself and of course with the team but he's really doing a remarkable job all the way down into getting you know the relationship with you so well yeah and we appreciate I appreciate you guys talking so openly about this you know Lonnie sit on a lot of boards we diligence a lot of companies and this happens like literally 90 95% of the time is there's some kind of co-founder conflict like this and there's a variety of ways to solve it right you could pay cash to buy out on you know and this is this is this could also be early Angels right or you know just non-operational Equity you could raise money to then go buy out those and do a secondary you could reestablish a new ESOP pool with board approval that effectively dilutes the whole business and then gives more incentive to go forign management Lonnie have you seen any other effective strategies to incentivize go forward management when there's a big chunk of unoperational equity you know I think we've done some things um along the way even you know through kind of a tough three-year period if you will just with the economy and everything kind of Shifting to the left and right so short-term stuff um bonuses and you know things like that is so it'd be more on a a lower level scale if you will so if we couldn't get the equity there uh and you know what's interesting too I one time wanted to give Equity to an executive team another organization that I was there and everybody was grateful for it um but one guy and he came to me and said hey I've got two kids in college and I'm trying to get through that and cash is more important to me now than it will be in the future and we sat down as a team and you know worked with HR to make sure we were we were above board and doing everything correctly but we did something completely different for him that kept him in the seat all the way until you know like five six years later when the company started to transition so I think sometimes what motivates us is not always what we think and um you know in Andy's case clearly he's been there from the beginning so being able to do what we've done what you've done for him um and we were able to approve has been a really big you know uh boost to him so non-traditional stuff is still very effective and we've used it from small to big yeah let's wrap up guys the last three minutes here with just sort of the founder path experience so um are you guys comfortable sharing what deal we ended up doing together the amount and maybe you know the term or whatever you're comfortable sharing Andy yeah so I mean we yeah so we ended up doing uh 750k um so over uh 20 24 months um you know and I think there's um...