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We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

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Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#21

Post by xuki »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #7
eric4smith wrote: post #2

The vast majority of businesses.... 1. Are outside the valley 2. Started with minimal or no funding 3. Hire a ton of employees overall 4. Give their founders comfortable lives. 5. Do their thing very quietly without anyone really knowing. 6. You've never heard about.

I run one of these companies. USD 50M+ ARR, USD 20M+ profit. 3 people company. Could grow 10x if we want to. But we are enjoying staying low and enjoying our family lives. Excellent article by the Canary guys. They seem like really honest people. We didn't raise any money. Only focus was how to do faster iterations. By the time 25 of my ideas didn't succeed, every iteration became very fast. Idea to launch in 3 month…

How do you handle support with just 3 people? I imagine at that scale you either have a lot of customers, or small number of customers with very specific needs.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#22

Post by nmfisher »

warent wrote: post #14
bootstrapper101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run one of these companies. USD 50M+ ARR, USD 20M+ profit. 3 people company. Could grow 10x if we want to. But we are enjoying staying low and enjoying our family lives. Excellent article by the Canary guys. They seem like really honest people. We didn't raise any money. Only focus was how to do faster iterations. By the time 25 of my ideas didn't succeed, every iteration became very fast. Idea to launch in 3 month…

Am I the only one reading a significant amount of ego and humblebrag from this post? It's pretty off-putting and distracting from where there could be value.

No, I didn't get that impression at all.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#23

Post by nmfisher »

0xfaded wrote: post #11
jampa wrote: post #3

Nice writeup! Speaking as someone that tried to be a founder from Brazil: I imagine that making it on Silicon Valley must be hard task on itself but making in an underdeveloped country makes odds stacked against you. We compete with companies founded with people that have access to clients with way more purchasing power and better supply pipeline. I'm a bit curious on how the team got overcame this issues, and would…

> We compete with companies founded with people that have access to clients with way more purchasing power and better supply pipeline. Your wording flipped a bit in my head. That exact wording could be said of Europe. There's a whole show and dance to make it seem like it's not, but when everything is about government grants and consortiums, it is.

> Your wording flipped a bit in my head. That exact wording could be said of Europe. There's a whole show and dance to make it seem like it's not, but when everything is about government grants and consortiums, it is.

Sounds very much like Australia, too.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#24

Post by bootstrapper101 »

breck wrote: post #13
bootstrapper101 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run one of these companies. USD 50M+ ARR, USD 20M+ profit. 3 people company. Could grow 10x if we want to. But we are enjoying staying low and enjoying our family lives. Excellent article by the Canary guys. They seem like really honest people. We didn't raise any money. Only focus was how to do faster iterations. By the time 25 of my ideas didn't succeed, every iteration became very fast. Idea to launch in 3 month…

Are there any small public companies (<50 employees) you admire?

I don't know employee strength of many companies. Some companies which feel relatively small that I like are: 1Password (agilebits), Protonmail, Little Snitch (Objective Development).

PS: I am getting throttled by HN algorithms. If someone can help get me unthrottled I will get around to answering all the questions.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#25

Post by sigil »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #7
eric4smith wrote: post #2

The vast majority of businesses.... 1. Are outside the valley 2. Started with minimal or no funding 3. Hire a ton of employees overall 4. Give their founders comfortable lives. 5. Do their thing very quietly without anyone really knowing. 6. You've never heard about.

I run one of these companies. USD 50M+ ARR, USD 20M+ profit. 3 people company. Could grow 10x if we want to. But we are enjoying staying low and enjoying our family lives. Excellent article by the Canary guys. They seem like really honest people. We didn't raise any money. Only focus was how to do faster iterations. By the time 25 of my ideas didn't succeed, every iteration became very fast. Idea to launch in 3 month…

Are you in a large market with competitors but still plenty of room, or have you more or less cornered a smaller one?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#26

Post by wuschel »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #15
warent wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one reading a significant amount of ego and humblebrag from this post? It's pretty off-putting and distracting from where there could be value.

I am really sorry it came that way. It's been a long day. Thought this was a good opportunity to share my learnings and answer any questions. If there is any way I could help answer any question, I would love to!

Hi, no worries, we all communicate with text here... misunderstandings happen regularly with a fraction users you interact with.

Congratulations on your success!

Here are some questions:

Q1. What was the prerequisite for your success (product/service, team, market)?

Q2 What technology space are you in? (Digital/brand vs high-tech)?

Q3 What weré your difficultis when iterating over your product concepts, and what was the iteration frequency?

Q4 How long did it take to take off?

Would love to chat at some point, or connect. My email is the profile.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#27

Post by [deleted] »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #15
warent wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one reading a significant amount of ego and humblebrag from this post? It's pretty off-putting and distracting from where there could be value.

I am really sorry it came that way. It's been a long day. Thought this was a good opportunity to share my learnings and answer any questions. If there is any way I could help answer any question, I would love to!

[deleted]

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#28

Post by neolog »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #17
andi999 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating. Is your product b2b? How fast did you discard the 25 ideas? It sounde like you needed 3 month at least, so 8 years? What did you live on during that time? So in short:please tell me more

It's a consumer product. It is very draining. In today's world consumer don't want to pay for anything, unless they really want the product and they don't have a way to get it otherwise. Many users would use the product and then file chargebacks. Many users will go to any extend to get out of paying coming up with either sad stories, lies or threats. When it's a low cost, high volume product (5m+ paying customers ove…

> Did a lot of mistakes along the way.

What distinguished the successful attempts from the unsuccessful ones?

How did you know when it was time to move on?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#29

Post by stevoski »

Many of the customers of my B2B SaaS are the type of company from the article.

We're small enough that I check out the website of every new company. I continue to be amazed at the sheer breadth of small-ish, profitable companies, often bootstrapped, that I would normally never encounter.

Also, a shameless plug for my podcast for people running bootstrapped software companies: https://bootstrapped.fm/

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#30

Post by ZephyrBlu »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #17
andi999 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating. Is your product b2b? How fast did you discard the 25 ideas? It sounde like you needed 3 month at least, so 8 years? What did you live on during that time? So in short:please tell me more

It's a consumer product. It is very draining. In today's world consumer don't want to pay for anything, unless they really want the product and they don't have a way to get it otherwise. Many users would use the product and then file chargebacks. Many users will go to any extend to get out of paying coming up with either sad stories, lies or threats. When it's a low cost, high volume product (5m+ paying customers ove…

> In today's world consumer don't want to pay for anything, unless they really want the product and they don't have a way to get it otherwise

Knowing this, how do you create and market your product to get people to buy?

I feel like with B2B it's easier to convince people to buy purely by showing them value, whereas B2C seems more impulse driven.

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