[deleted]
Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
11–20 of 46 posts
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#12Im 3 years in and still not ramen profitable. Sadly, I have been working hard at it for 3 years and still no where near where I want it to be. But I am only one person.
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#13Last hit for me: launched solo in 1998, self-sustaining though I didn't make any money personally (kept folding it back in, worked programming contracts to live), got angel funding in 2000 and popped staff to 14, first profitable month in March 2001. Became consistently profitable in October 2001 and never again went into the red. Sold to a venture firm in 2006.
Current biz: launched in 2009. Still working on profitability. This is a long tail business so I've learned I need to be patient.
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#14I've worked at a few startups in the past and can give you this history: 1) First one was an ISP, boot-strapped. 4 years. Mildly profitable, sold to a larger ISP. 2) The next one was a short stint with a e-retailer. They were almost immediately profitable, but needed some serious cash to grow. So it sold within a couple of years and the founders all still work there. It's wildly profitable now, but alas none of the f…
May want to add a DNS record so it works without the www: http://kymalabs.com/
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#15BCC was profitable within about a month of conception and has been since then.
AR will, knock on wood, probably hit cash-flow positive in May (about six months after launch) and pay back development costs in a month or two after that. I was originally targeting 12 months for surpassing BCC & consulting but, knock on wood, I have since learned something about my market which may make that pessimistic.
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#16Bootstrapped the entire operation for three years before it started generating any revenue. Took about 5 months from turning on the monetization aspect before it broke even month to month...We're netting about $3k profit each month now.
"Profit" as in after everyone gets paid?
Yep, after everything is said and done...hosting, tools, developers, etc.
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#17Bootstrapped the entire operation for three years before it started generating any revenue. Took about 5 months from turning on the monetization aspect before it broke even month to month...We're netting about $3k profit each month now.
How were you able to bootstrap for 3 years? Were you consulting on the side?
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#18It depends on what you define as startup and what you define as profitable. Visual Website Optimizer beta was launched in December 2009, I quit my full time job in March 2010 (yay, it will be one full year soon!) and then launched paid plans in May 2010. Within first week, sales of VWO >> my previous salary. And that's how I define the startup as profitable.
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#19Bootstrapped the entire operation for three years before it started generating any revenue. Took about 5 months from turning on the monetization aspect before it broke even month to month...We're netting about $3k profit each month now.
How were you able to bootstrap for 3 years? Were you consulting on the side?
This was our "night time and weekends" project. I still have a full time job.
FYI, I do not write code. We have three very part time developers building it.
Re: Ask HN: How long did you stuck with your startup before it is profitable?
#20I've worked at a few startups in the past and can give you this history: 1) First one was an ISP, boot-strapped. 4 years. Mildly profitable, sold to a larger ISP. 2) The next one was a short stint with a e-retailer. They were almost immediately profitable, but needed some serious cash to grow. So it sold within a couple of years and the founders all still work there. It's wildly profitable now, but alas none of the f…
May want to add a DNS record so it works without the www: http://kymalabs.com/
Thanks, we're on GAE, and they claim they'll only route to subdomains. Any ideas?