Quitting Startups/VC to $25k+/Month Solo Bootstrapper | Martin Donadieu | BuildingNow Podcast

In this episode of BuildingNow, I sit down with Martin Donadieu, founder of Capgo, who walked away from the venture-backed startup world to bootstrap on his own and scaled his product to over $25k+ MRR. Martin shares the raw reality of bootstrapping solo: why he quit his role as a VC-backed CTO, how fixing open-source plugins accidentally became a 10x marketing flywheel, running a podcast as an entrepreneurship MBA, and why building in public is the only real moat against copycats. What we cover: • Why raising VC money made him care more about investors than customers • Leaving a venture-backed startup to bootstrap solo • Being stuck at $3k MRR and getting blunt feedback on his SEO • How maintaining 150+ open-source plugins became his biggest acquisition engine • Why you should welcome angry customer feedback instead of fearing it • How a non-technical onboarding test with his wife unlocked conversion growth • Using a podcast as a networking tool rather than just audience building • Why building in public beats building in stealth About Martin: Martin Donadieu is the founder of Capgo, an open-source live update system for Capacitor apps. He has scaled Capgo to over $25k+ MRR as a solo bootstrapper and shares his building journey openly on X. Connect with Martin: X/Twitter: x.com/martindonadieu Connect with me: x.com/buildwithmaya