How Steve Sonnenberg Built a $1B Company After Bankruptcy

Steve Sonnenberg once led a fast-growing technology company with hundreds of employees. Years later, he rebuilt from bankruptcy and turned a risky credit card charge into a business valued at $1 billion.

That transformation didn't happen quickly or comfortably. Before becoming CEO of Awardco, Steve Sonnenberg faced what he described as a “traumatic experience” after shutting down his first company and filing for bankruptcy protection while raising four young children.

“It was the most difficult time in my life,” he said. “I had four kids under the age of five.”

A Promising Rise Ends Abruptly

Steve Sonnenberg launched WholesaleMatch during college in 2003. The company sold e-commerce tools and grew into what he described as a multimillion-dollar operation with roughly 200 employees.

Everything changed during 2011, when WholesaleMatch became a co-defendant in a Federal Trade Commission civil lawsuit involving fraud allegations against one client. Steve Sonnenberg has denied any knowledge of that client’s conduct. Still, the lawsuit triggered severe consequences. Assets were frozen, products went offline, and customers issued chargebacks.

“I was thinking: ‘How the hell am I going to defend myself? My assets are frozen,’” he said. “I had thousands of customers using my products. Then, all of a sudden, they were taken offline.”

The case ended with a $130 million group payoff two years later. Sonnenberg accomplices closed down WholesaleMatch and filed for bankruptcy.

“I settled. I filed for bankruptcy, and I had nothing left,” he said. “The only thing I had left, I guess, was an idea.”

A Moment that Forced a Reset

That idea became Awardco. With no capital and no company, Steve Sonnenberg used $5,000 charged to a credit card to purchase the Awardco.com domain from a previous owner.

“One day I was walking on this trail and a strong impression came into my mind: ‘If you try to fight this, it will consume you, and you’ll lose your family,’” he said. “So, I decided to walk away from that business that I was very proud of and build again.”

To support his family, Sonnenberg freelanced building websites and later took a full-time job at business software company Qualtrics in 2014. Workdays started early. Nights stretched until midnight.

“At Qualtrics, I would work from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. at my day job,” he said. “Then, I’d go home, and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., I’d do family stuff. From 8 p.m. to midnight, I got back online and started building Awardco.”

Building Without Permission

Steve Sonnenberg partnered with his cousin Mike Sonnenberg, a backend developer, and Tanner Runia, a tech consultant at Qualtrics. Together, they built a platform that allowed employees to reward one another using points redeemable for products available through Amazon.

There was no partnership at first. Steve Sonnenberg accessed Amazon’s open API and manually processed orders. Employees selected items. His wife fulfilled purchases at night.

“I didn’t know who at Amazon I should talk to,” he said. “I called this random person I found on LinkedIn, and they were like, ‘No, we don’t like this.’ I just kept building.”

By 2015, Awardco had roughly 40 corporate clients and directed about $300,000 per year toward Amazon purchases. That traction finally earned attention.

A Partnership Changes Everything

Amazon invited Steve Sonnenberg to Seattle in 2015 to present Awardco. After years of manual fulfillment, Amazon agreed to automate ordering through deeper technical integration.

“We can create additional technology where we can automate the ordering process,” he recalled being told.

The timing proved crucial. Amazon Business launched shortly afterward, and Awardco aligned closely with that ecosystem. Growth accelerated as larger companies signed on.

Founded in 2011, Awardco now serves six million users across companies such as AT&T and Hertz. A $165 million funding round during May valued the Lindon, Utah-based company at $1 billion.

The Mindset Behind Starting Over

Looking back, Steve Sonnenberg describes entrepreneurship as instinct rather than strategy.

“When you are an entrepreneur, you just figure it out, right?” he said. “It was non-stop. I was in a massive hole, and I needed to figure out how to dig myself out of it.”

He describes his defining strength simply.

“When it comes to entrepreneurship, my superpower is all about just beginning,” Sonnenberg said. “Then I just keep going.”

Confidence mattered, even when circumstances suggested otherwise.

“Every entrepreneur is a little bit crazy,” he said. “I think that’s a trait of successful entrepreneurs. They don’t get in the way of themselves.”

After bankruptcy erased his first company, Steve Sonnenberg built a second one from scratch. That decision transformed a failed business chapter into a billion-dollar second act, driven by persistence, risk, and a refusal to stop building.