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A commercial pilot at a regional airline makes less than $50,000 a year, many are closer to $30,000. When you get hired by a big airliner (over 1500 hours of flight time) and eventually you get to captain (not co-pilot) then you increase substantially, but nowhere close to $20,000, unless you fly a drug lord in strange places.
I have friends who are pilots at the majors who clear $300,000+ a year. Pay has risen substantially since the round of bankruptcies cleared legacy debts. FedEx and UPS apparently pay the most - although I'm not sure why.
I'm a seed stage VC. If you want feedback on your pitch or cold email, please email me at leo@susaventures.com. I'd be happy to help. My fund might be a fit as an investor. If not, then I might be able to suggest a few firms that could be a fit. Also, 4% is a low open rate, but that might be misleading. For example, I set gmail to not open images by default, which could affect emails that use tracking pixels. Finally…
I also sold my last company for a bit more than what you're describing, but in the same arena. Feel free to get in touch if I can help. (Find me via my profile and/or on social media if you're interested.)
We've been in a similar situation before, that we managed to grow our way out of. It is possible to get through this, keep growing your business, and do it all on your own terms.
To resolve the short-term feeling of being overwhelmed, here are a few ideas:
* Try to get more $$ upfront by converting customers to annual plans, or raising implementation fees.
* Defer some customers until your team is larger (or they pay more).
* List out what you're working on, and ruthlessly trim anything non-essential.
* Contract out what you can.
* Raise some angel or friends and family $$.
I don't know what your revenue is, but I'd guess a few hundred k ARR. In the medium term, if you can grow 5-10% a month, you'll double or triple your revenue in a year. This will give you a lot more optionality in the long term:
* You can just keep bootstrapping forever if you want.
* If you raise, you'll get much better terms with more revenue.
* If you sell, you'll get a higher price.
Of course, this depends on having solid growth channels, and a reasonably sized market.
Taking the time out now to chase VC funding when it's not there will hurt your ability to grow in the short and medium term. If you focus on growing revenue instead, you'll increase your chances at VC funding or a sale in the long term.
I'm happy to chat more if you want -- email is in my profile.
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Sure why not would you provide break down of how that would look with family:)? you can start by subtracting taxes
Let's say $100k post-tax to make it easy. - Housing $34k annually - Car $16k annually - Food $20k annually - Stuff $20k annually - Vacation $10k annually
Re: selling vs raising, I would say it really depends on your fire to change the vertical market you're talking about (or more).
The other thing I've seen (in both directions) is that if you get hooked up to a few CEOs, they can make introductions for you. Can you introduce customers to any CEOs that don't compete that have great investors that you'd like to talk to? Get most CEOs I know a solid $100k+ ARR customer into and they'll listen to your story and make intros if I think appropriate.
It is a disadvantage to not be in an investor-dense area, and travel costs money. I moved to SF to start Kentik, but I think the same principles would work if I had stayed in Philadelphia.
Good luck!
A few things, though it's hard without much info (re: revenue/growth). Regardless: 1. A $14m sale is a huuuge win. You'd be set for life. A 100% likelihood of $14m is something that is difficult to turn down in almost any scenario. Even if you'd eventually make $50m, your life wouldn't change much from a net worth of $14m to $50m. You could buy a nicer jet? Let's say you take the $14m. Your life would (presumably) ch…