Sharon Nouh built ProSpend, a spend management SaaS platform for mid-market companies, after seeing firsthand how broken expense processes were in corporate travel. Starting with an expense tool, focused on her home market in Australia, she bootstrapped the company and landed a global enterprise as her first customer with a simple but powerful product vision.

Over 10 years, she expanded ProSpend into a full spend management system covering expenses, accounts payable, purchase orders, and budgets. The company grew to about 1,000 customers and 50 employees, with annual contracts ranging from roughly $15K to $40K, driven by strong mid-market focus and channel partnerships.

In 2025 Sharon sold ProSpend to ISH (Invincible Software Holdings), a strategic acquirer. She still runs ProSpend but can now accelerate expansion into the UK. After years of staying independent, she chose a acquisition partner over VC funding to maintain control and execute her long-term vision, showing how a sale can be a strategic move—not an endpoint.

Key Takeaways

Bootstrap Reality — It took five to six years before taking meaningful income, with constant cash flow pressure early on.
Product Expansion — Growth came from adding adjacent modules CFOs needed, not chasing unrelated features or markets.
Channel Leverage — Partnering with MYOB and resellers now drives about 50% of new customers efficiently.
Control Matters — Avoiding VC preserved full control over timing and terms of exit decisions.

Quote from Sharon Nouh, CEO and Founder of ProSpend

"A couple of years ago, one of the visions that I had for ProSpend was to expand from Australia into the UK. The UK was always going to be the market that we wanted to move into, rather than the US, because it's a very aligned, very similar market.

"And also because one of our competitors, WebExpenses, had been bought and sold about four times, and they were the incumbent in the UK. They were suffering. They hadn't been developing their product. There was a real gap for us to go into the UK and start picking up the mid-market there.

"So the question was, do I get VC funding, even though we've always been bootstrapped. Or do I look for an acquiring partner, somebody from the UK who could take us in there with boots on the ground and market intelligence? And I chose the latter and sold the business that I still run."

Links

Podcast Sponsor – Full Scale

This podcast is sponsored by Full Scale, one of the fastest-growing software development companies in any region. Full Scale vets, employs, and supports over 300 professional developers, designers, and testers in the Philippines who can augment and extend your core dev team. Learn more at fullscale.io.

The Practical Founders Podcast

Tune into the Practical Founders Podcast for weekly in-depth interviews with founders who have built valuable software companies without big funding. Subscribe to the Practical Founders Podcast using your favorite podcast app or view on our YouTube channel.

Get the weekly Practical Founders newsletter and podcast updates at practicalfounders.com.

Practical Founders CEO Peer Groups

Be part of a committed and confidential group of practical founders creating valuable software companies without big VC funding. A Practical Founders Peer Group is a committed and confidential group of founders/CEOs who want to help you succeed on your terms. Each Practical Founders Peer Group is personally curated and moderated by Greg Head.