Laura Roeder
Founder & CEO, Paperbell. On 2 shows, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutive@lkr ↗LinkedIn ↗lauraroeder.com ↗
Laura Roeder is an entrepreneur best known for founding the social media automation platform MeetEdgar, which she exited in 2021. Today, she runs Paperbell, an all-in-one management platform for coaches.
2shows
3appearances
22statements
3resolved
3supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
18said about them ↓ Everything Laura Roeder said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Roeder: Paperbell's solo engineer matched VC-backed Practice's entire engineering team
“We had one person engineering team for the first three years of the business. And our one person was able to build extremely similar to what their entire team built.”
Roeder: Practice Spent Seed Funding on Engineering Instead of Marketing
“They seem because maybe because they had only, you know, quote unquote, ten million, they seem to have put it all into engineering and extremely little into marketing.”
Roeder: Bootstrappers test pivots with ads, while VCs overhaul entire products
“I think bootstrappers think more like, okay, if it's not working, if you need a pivot, let me try just like running a few ads to this market. Let me try just changing the marketing and not too much with the product and let's see if it gets traction there. Wher…”
Roeder: Bootstrapped Paperbell had far more revenue than $10M-backed competitor Practice
“We did not end up acquiring practice and it wasn't, it didn't really end up being a serious conversation, and they ended up just shutting down. And I, you know, I did find out that they weren't that large, that we were definitely far ahead of them as far as re…”
Roeder: Startups should ignore Bluesky and market on established social platforms
“Don't market on blue sky. It just launched. You know, like, hang out there for fun if you want to. Like, mark it on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Reddit if that's where people are, YouTube, lots of people on YouTube. Like, just don't overthink it. Go for the most…”
Bootstrapped SaaS companies must be cautious relying on LTV metrics
“As a bootstrap company I think you have to be really careful with lifetime value because it takes you a long time to make that amount of money.”
Roeder: A $2M revenue SaaS is a VC failure but bootstrapper dream
“And I think this is one of the huge bootstrapper advantages that people don't deeply understand that doesn't get talked about enough is as a bootstrapper, I can run a business that let's say it like maxes out at two million. Let's say it never gets higher than…”
Roeder: 'Practice' was a terrible startup name because it ruined searchability
“I do think they had just a terrible name. And I don't think that names matter that much at the end of the day, but this name was impossible to Google, impossible to track. It's like, you can't see when people are talking about you on Reddit or Facebook or anyt…”
Roeder: Bootstrapped startups lack the volume to test pricing models
“One of just the hard things about being a bootstrap business is you just, you don't have enough volume to test something like pricing model. Like, your pricing model usually means a completely different backend, right? Testing something, you know, usage versus…”
Roeder: Meta Advantage+ automatically handles ad retargeting campaigns
“The way that all the biggest spenders on Meta do it now is just to use advantage, what they call advantage plus, which is just like Meta do your thing. And what I recently learned is they also do retargeting automatically. So you actually, I mean, you still ca…”
Edgar avoided a free tier to manage bootstrapped startup costs
“We decided not to have a free plan. And one reason for that is because we're bootstrapped. So we couldn't really afford to support, you know, lots and lots of customers that weren't paying us.”
Edgar reached $2.2M ARR and 4,000 customers by January 2016
“We have just under 4000 customers. So we're at about 2.2 million annual reoccurring.”
Roeder: Paperbell reached low millions in ARR while fully bootstrapped
“Paperbell launched in 2020, so five years ago at the time of this recording. We're fully bootstrapped. We're now in the low millions ARR.”
Laura Roeder: Paperbell has only one full-time employee
“We have one full-time person, everyone's freelance, so as small as possible basically is how big's the team.”
Roeder: Practice launched in 2020 with an announced $10M seed round
“Practice launched the same year as us, 20, 20. And they announced that they had raised ten million when they launched, I think they might have called it a seed round.”
Roeder: Competitor Practice raised venture capital from Andreessen Horowitz
“Well, and they raised from Andreessen Horovitz.”
Laura Roeder: Paperbell generates seven-figure ARR after four years bootstrapping
“Paperbell is a bootstrap SaaS that's been around for four years. We're in the seven-figure annual reoccurring revenue range, and it's a tool for coaches, like life coaches, to run their business.”
Roeder launched Edgar with an existing email list of 80,000 subscribers
“From my previous business, we had about 80,000 on the list.”
Edgar spends $30,000 per month on Facebook ads for acquisition
“We spend about 30,000 a month on, on Facebook ads.”
The other half of the tape: Laura Roeder's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 16 times in 14 episodes across the shows. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 8Rob Walling 4Tracy Osborn 2Max Armbruster 1Jordan Gal 1
Statements about Laura Roeder, by other people (2)
Walling: Building an audience is not worth it for SaaS founders
“If you're going to sell info products, build an audience, not for SaaS, not worth it. There's other things you should do”
Walling: Bringing Bootstrapper Pragmatism to Venture Capital Is a Superpower
“Now that I have like raised funding with tiny seed and I see companies that raise a few million, you know, we have a bunch of tiny seed companies that have done this. If you do it well, if you think about it like a bootstrapper, and you approach it like Laura …”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
Top Founders 9
Startups For the Rest of Us 7
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2021 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2020 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode
2016 6 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
- This is How Much Revenue Ontraport Does with Landon Ray
- She Focuses on Energy and Did $1.2m Last Year with Sheevaun Moran Ep 180
- How do You Sell for $90m with NO REVENUE?! EP 167
- Use $200 To Make $15m With ECommerce Tricks of Scott Hutchison of Ashley Bridget
- He Sits on Spotify Board
- every mention in 2016, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Laura's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STARTUPS FOR THE REST OF USLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Paperbell | 2 | 16 | 100% 3/3 | full record on Startups For the Rest of Us → |
| TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Paperbell | 1 | 6 | — | full record on Top Founders → |