GIVEAWAY WIDGETS AND COUPONS - OVER 2 BILLION LEADS

A WILD DETOUR THAT SPARKED A STARTUP

Stuart McKeon didn’t set out to build a SaaS powerhouse. He moved from Ireland to Australia chasing a DJ life, but the late nights and low pay killed the fantasy. What replaced it? A marketing obsession. After cutting his teeth in startups like Hitwise (later acquired by Experian), Stuart still felt the entrepreneurial itch burning louder than corporate comfort.

THE COUPON SITE CRASH THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

He and developer John bootstrapped a coupon site to nearly $30K/month in three months—then Google’s Panda update obliterated it overnight. Nine months of failed fixes later, they kept experimenting, using giveaways to grow every project they touched.

THE “AHA!” WEEKEND

Frustrated by clunky contest tools, they built their own sleek, one-click giveaway widget in a single weekend. It was simple, viral, and ridiculously easy for users. They launched it for themselves… and others immediately wanted in. Gleam was born.

GRIT-FIRST GROWTH

Stuart landed the first 100 customers by manually recreating competitors’ campaigns and cold-emailing them—10 a day, every day, for 3 months. That hustle ignited word-of-mouth virality, integrations (Shopify, Mailchimp, Twitch), and a content engine that now drives most sales.

THE BOOTSTRAPPER’S WIN

Slow, steady, side-hustle scaling turned into a remote team of 16 and a platform capable of generating billions of leads—proving perseverance beats flash every time.

Watch the full video here from the Foundr Youtube Channel