Stephen Dale was handed a "fire warden jacket" and a broken spreadsheet at a UAE startup, tasked with managing vendors spending nearly $1 million annually. Instead of accepting expensive enterprise solutions, he built his own and discovered the massive gap between what startups need and what the market offers.
Stephen is the co-founder of Vendor App, a vendor management platform designed specifically for startups and SMBs. After experiencing firsthand the pain of managing vendors through spreadsheets while working at a rapidly growing startup in the UAE, he identified a clear market need: enterprise vendor management systems were too complex and expensive (some costing $1M+ annually), while startups were stuck with broken spreadsheets and missed renewals. Vendor App solves this with one-click compliance checks, automated contract management, and pricing that actually makes sense for growing companies. Currently bootstrapping from the Philippines, Stephen and his team are building the vendor management tool that startups actually want to use.
He explains:
⬛ Why bootstrapping forced better decisions:
⬛ The hidden cost of vendor mismanagement:
⬛ How to know when to stop adding features
⬛ Why grit is more important than education for founders
⬛ The unexpected places founder insights come from
Follow Stephen Dale
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-dale-3a819840/
Website: https://www.vendorapp.co/

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