In 2016, Gino Cateriano started Evalart, an online assessment platform for hiring. Initially, it was just a side project for his wife to earn a bit of extra income.

The early days were brutal:
→ First customer: a freelance recruiter
→ Sales pace: 1 per month (break-even required 2 per day)
→ After 18 months: finally hitting 1 per day → break-even
→ By 2019: profitable at $100K ARR
→ Pandemic tailwinds gave growth an extra push

Fast forward: Evalart became a trusted tool for recruiters and HR teams, and Gino sold the business in an international deal he describes as “stressful but worth it.”

In this episode of Indie Board Session's The Debrief, Gino and I unpack:
- How persistence through slow growth turned a hobby into a real SaaS business
- The key role of continuous product improvement in keeping customers engaged
- What the acquisition process was really like and what made it stressful
- How Noosa Labs is sustaining innovation to keep Evalart growing post-acquisition

For anyone bootstrapping, this is proof that slow beginnings don’t mean failure and that patience can lead to outcomes you never imagined.

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