With respect to each company, what do the numbers in the parentheses mean? Is that profit, revenue or something else per month?
This is almost always (and frustratingly!) Monthly Recurring Revenue.
Frustrating how?
Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
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Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#22Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#23Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why a coffee company is a “tech startup”. (Though TBF Amazon didn’t feel like a tech company in the 1990s)
It has a live chat and five different tracking solutions implemented. What about this doesn't look like a tech business?
That’s just table stakes for a generic retail store Just because I drive a car wouldn’t make me a car business.
I think of tech businesses primarily as those that develop novel technology and secondarily as those who use technology in a novel and unexpected way. In both cases technology is the differentiation.
The only novelty of this business is its message and while that might make a perfectly respectable business (I am not part of the target market so I can not judge) there’s no “tech” in their business plan. Think of it more like Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein: the clothes are made in the same factories by the same workers; the only differentiation is market positioning. Nobody would criticize them as not being “business” or even “clothes business” but their differentiator is marketing.
Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frustrating how?
Revenue is close to useless if you’re selling dollars for quarters. Hard to gauge the efficacy of businesses without the full picture.
IndieHackers are usually self-bootstrappers, they wouldn't sustain long by selling dollars for quarters.
Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#26Wow, a coffee company is now a tech company. I didn't bother with the rest of the list.
Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#27wow, love the honesty of some of these, killer compilation really liked this --> "From the start, I was aware that I was taking on a huge project that other companies have devoted entire teams to, but I chose to look at it as more of a mental challenge than a technical one. I knew I had the skillset to pull it off, I just had to keep myself motivated and on track."
Heh, that's mine and about my Sciter project. Sciter is pretty full implementation of HTML5 and CSS, has scripting engine on board, etc. So, indeed, I am personally competing with teams behind WebKit, Trident, Gecko, V8 (JS Engine), Chakra (MS JS Engine) and bunch of others. And recently with ReactJS (Sciter got Reactor - native implementation of ReactJs), Angular and others. And that is really a fun project to work…
that’s the one project in the list that caught my eye - looks pretty neat. shame it doesn't gain the attention of the electron hating mob on HN - they all want people to work for free and give them stuff for no money but in the name of foss. keep up the good work, your project is an example of going against what the mob wants and building a successful product.
Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#28Wow, a coffee company is now a tech company. I didn't bother with the rest of the list.
well the 9 to 5 you work in js probably selling some non tech products as well, yet it may be called a tech company.
Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#29Never trust anything that comes from indiehackers, this is a community of professional indie astroturfers and manipulators of everything from renaming the same product and launching it every couple months on ProductHunt and buying upvotes, to baiting HNers with "How I made $X by doing Y". It's a pump and dump scheme on sub-million dollar levels.
Not sure why a coffee company is a “tech startup”. (Though TBF Amazon didn’t feel like a tech company in the 1990s)
well google is an ad company, what’s your point
Re: Founders share the challenges of running a tech business
#30enjoy how there's perspective given from the responders with their current MRR as well. as a founder of a bootstrapped tech-enabled service startup with $135k+ MRR is cash flow. Accounts Receivable is a PITA and it still hasn't been solved (even with the likes of bill.com, harvest, stripe, paypal, qbo, etc...) - i'd almost pay for a company to outsource our AR to completely to represent us on initial AR, 30-90 day AR…
This exists; invoice factoring companies make this process relatively straightforward.