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Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

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Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#61

Post by shostack »

cultvoid wrote: post #17
nathan_f77 wrote: post #10

> Purposefully under-optimize > For example, I really do not understand paid search advertising (Google Adwords, Facebook, etc) so I purposefully put almost no effort into it as a customer acquisition channel for Storemapper. This article is awesome and super helpful, but that particular point seems like terrible advice. Surely it would be much better to hire a marketing/adwords contractor, and increase the value of…

In my experience, hiring a marketing/adwords contractor is the very easiest way to transfer cash out of your business and into somebody else's business, with no discernible value gained. I'm sure there are some hotshot marketing/adwords contractors out there...and unicorns probably exist also.

As someone who manages digital media for a living and has done so with very large sums of money with measurable revenue attached to that spend, I'd invite you to share what makes your experience so concrete as to enable you to attempt to discredit an entire industry with a wave of your hand.

I'll be the first to say that measuring the incremental impact of advertising is often very challenging for a variety of technical and business reasons. That does not mean it doesn't work.

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#62

Post by sparrish »

joosters wrote: post #2

...the cash, from selling the business has built momentum for other projects like [...] angel investing, I just knew that would be in there. Why do so many tech people seem to think that VC investment is what they want to be doing once they have spare cash? This isn't a personal critique of the OP, but it just seems so very common in general. I don't understand it.

Seems a bit ironic that a successful bootstrapped business owner would want to do angel investing.

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#63

Post by joosters »

tylertringas wrote: post #32
joosters wrote: post #2

...the cash, from selling the business has built momentum for other projects like [...] angel investing, I just knew that would be in there. Why do so many tech people seem to think that VC investment is what they want to be doing once they have spare cash? This isn't a personal critique of the OP, but it just seems so very common in general. I don't understand it.

I use the term "angel investing" pretty loosely here. Not implying picking startups on angelist, but more like small investments in other Micro-SaaS businesses. Still formulating a strategy for investing tbh as it's the first time in my life I've have real captial to deploy, but I feel like I have a better competitive advantage investing in what I know rather than securities

Hey, good luck to you. Again, it's nothing personal, and I don't mean to be insulting your choices, I just find it interesting that VC investment is so popular a choice for moneyed tech workers.

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#64

Post by joosters »

duggan wrote: post #18
joosters wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's plenty of ways to 'give back to the community' without being the one waving the chequebook. In particular, if you've got the spare time to work on other projects, you can do plenty to help out.

Some folks have more spare money than spare time. If you've got the spare time, cool, if you've got the spare money, cool. What's the issue here?

I've no issue with angel investing. It does start to irk me when people talk about it as 'giving back to the community' though. That used to be called charity, not investment.

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#66

Post by Kiro »

joosters wrote: post #2

...the cash, from selling the business has built momentum for other projects like [...] angel investing, I just knew that would be in there. Why do so many tech people seem to think that VC investment is what they want to be doing once they have spare cash? This isn't a personal critique of the OP, but it just seems so very common in general. I don't understand it.

Because it's fun. You wouldn't want to do it if you had the money?

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#67

Post by joosters »

alien_at_work wrote: post #21
joosters wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, exactly. Profitable VC investment is often described as a numbers game, where you need to make maybe hundreds of investments to smooth out the inevitable numerous failures. 4x $250k angel investments is basically a long shot gamble. On the flip side, if you do spread your investments and invest in lots of companies, you as an individual aren't going to be able to have enough time to help or advise any one start…

How often do angels get screwed when VC's come in? Genuinly asking, not trying to make some point.

Sorry, I'm talking about VCs/angels as the same thing, and not trying to say anything about the investment time/stage/size/whatever.

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#68

Post by nulagrithom »

bryanph_ wrote: post #31

Shows how out of touch I am with the corporate world. I can't believe people pay monthly for this.

I work for a medium-sized business in an out-of-touch (technologically speaking) industry.

You would not believe the shit we pay for.

Were our company in need of a way to cross the street, we would almost certainly look for a vendor supported crosswalk, plus consultants to guide us through crossing the street the first few times, and training for our designated crosswalk guard.

And I'm not even convinced they're doing it wrong. People are expensive. Most the time Build vs Buy is a no-brainer for everything but your absolute core business, and even then you should wonder if custom software really will differentiate you from the rest of the market.

Honestly? I wish I had seen Storemapper a few months ago. We were in the middle of a website redesign and the board president decided he didn't like the map. He got the CEO involved who told the CIO who told... you get the idea. Storemapper would've been pure win that day.

Re: Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business

#69

Post by joosters »

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #51
joosters wrote: post #2

...the cash, from selling the business has built momentum for other projects like [...] angel investing, I just knew that would be in there. Why do so many tech people seem to think that VC investment is what they want to be doing once they have spare cash? This isn't a personal critique of the OP, but it just seems so very common in general. I don't understand it.

"paying it forward" is part of the silicon valley culture, and as other markets mature they try to adopt that mentality as well. without it, this is one of many aspects that will make it impossible for some hamlet in Bumbaf* Cheapsville to be "the next silicon valley"

I always thought "paying it forward" spoke of acts of charity, not investment (and to those who say that VCs don't expect any reward and invest solely through good spirit, perhaps they should then be making investments that don't give them the potential of huge paydays?)

Interestingly though, a read of "paying it forward" in wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_it_forward - teaches me that the phrase can also be implemented in the contract law of loans. I never knew!

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