13 Years to $180M: What Bootstrapping Really Looks Like with Gregory Galant

Founder Unfiltered - What Founders Think But Never Say · Aug 20, 2026 · 37m

I sat down with Gregory Galant, co-founder and CEO of Muckrack, the leading PR software platform, and co-founder of the Shorty Awards. Greg bootstrapped his company for 13 years on roughly $200K in angel funding before raising $180 million. That's not a typo, and getting there was not a straight line.

We talk about persistence, and how to actually tell the difference between an idea worth sticking with and one you need to walk away from. Greg shares the story of spending two years building a podcast ad network that never found its market, even while competitors were getting funded by Sequoia…