The $8 billion dollar software you’ve never heard of

Ryan Smith, Qualtrics, Billionaires, Bootstrapping, Marketing, SaaS (software as a service), Sell Your Business

A while back I saw a Q&A on CNN with today’s guest, Ryan Smith, where he was asked, “What’s the most important company we’ve never heard of?” His answer was Qualtrics.

And I’ve thought about this company several times since I saw that.

Well, I finally got an opportunity to interview that founder. Ryan Smith is the co-founder of Qualtrics. A lot of articles describe them as a survey company, but I bet he does not see himself as a survey company.

I’m going to ask him how he went from starting this company in his dad’s house back in 2002 and selling it to SAP in 2018.

Ryan Smith

Qualtrics

Ryan Smith is the founder of Qualtrics, an experience management platform.

Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses, and I do it for an audience of entrepreneurs who are building their businesses while listening to these interviews.

There is an old CNN . . . I can’t even tell how old because CNN takes the dates off of some of their old articles. There’s an old Q&A with today’s guests, Ryan Smith, where he was asked, “What’s the most important company we’ve never heard of?” And his answer was Qualtrics. And I think about how he must have been back then, a guy who was building a company that’s growing bigger and bigger and bigger. And I’ve got to tell you, I don’t remember seeing him on TechCrunch. I don’t remember seeing Qualtrics on the cover of business magazines and discussed. I don’t remember him kicking up a firestorm.

The only reason...

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