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We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

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Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#51

Post by sub7 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33
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.

Silicon Valley is a blind search algorithm for novel scaling advantages from digitisation. These advantages exist for mass retail. The medium-sized businesses who tried to compete with Walmart and Amazon had to adapt fast or fail. These advantages do not (EDIT: have not been shown to) exist for commercial real estate; WeWork was a dud. Most American commerce is, and should be, in the hands of these medium-sized busin…

WeWork is not done and has been a big win for everyone involved

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#52

Post by skrebbel »

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.

Just curious, where in Europe is doing a SaaS business "about government grants and consortiums"?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#53

Post by mh_ »

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 were a little bit lucky in this regard, because we had some authority in the niche (2 members of our original team had spoken at security conferences internationally for the previous 10 years).

I have lots of thoughts on this though. I think with a low enough burn rate, you can overcome this with a great product, and taking just one bite at a time. ie. one happy customer, then another. Actual customer happiness is so low, that you just have to do a little better to have people talk about you, and over time it compounds nicely.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#54

Post by mh_ »

newbie578 wrote: post #50

I got a question for which I don't see the answer in the article. What about employee compensation? Is it just a fixed salary or? Since I do not see any mention of going public in the article, so I'm curious what is the motivation for employees.

We do average to above average salaries, and all share a profit share bonus at the end of the year. Everyone gets a company credit card to buy books/tech needed to do their jobs. Everyone gets side benefits like an audible subscription, other mini stipends.

It's worth noting that we couldn't always do this (starting off we just went with "decent salaries and smart ppl to work with").

We try to keep doing this right so that we all do well as the company does.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#55

Post by bootstrapper101 »

newbie578 wrote: post #48
bootstrapper101 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Timeline: 7 years: Work for someone else. Try 5 ideas on the side. Save money 3 years: Tried 2 ideas and spent all the money 4 years: Worked for someone else. Tried 20 ideas on the side. Last became profitable and then I quit. It was really tough. I was working 14 hours every day between full time job and my other ideas. I grew up really poor, so had to do it the hard way. But I had an overwhelming desire to not work…

Congrats to you for finally succeeding! Just that your way of climbing doesn't sound quite fun. Spending 7 years working 14 hours a day, full of stress, and fail 20 times straight? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. I wonder how many people are doing the same things you were doing and are still not successful... I got a simple question, was it worth it and what would you change?

I love building products. The financial success was a side product.

I should have qualified my statement about failures better.

Current one: Financially successful for me.

Another one: Financially successful but got screwed over.

Another one: Was very successful with adoption, but timing got wrong and didn't become financially successful.

2 others: Moderate success but financially not successful.

It was really tough, but I enjoyed the process. I love building products. I have a few really good ideas, but don't have bandwidth for them right now. I would keep building products for my love of it.

My long term goal is to leave the world a better place. It took 10+ years to get to the point that I can work on anything I want to without worrying about bills.

I regret delaying having kids. I regret not spending enough time with family and friends. I wish I had taken better care of my health. But right now I get to spend more time with my kids than any of my friends.

Every individual is different with their situation and motivations. What worked for me might not work for others. The thing which helped me the most was my innate desire to build better products and making sure I keep learning more and more.

My life's driving principle is: If I can't look back at my self 2 years back and I don't think I was so stupid back then I am not learning fast enough.

Even though I have regrets, I would say it was worth it. Of course if I could I wish few things would have gone differently about my life - but who doesn't.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#56

Post by artemonster »

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 did you stumble on all the ideas to try? I am at a point that I want to try literally anything, but its is exceptionally hard to judge success chances if the target niche is absolutely outside your domain/experience. How did you find all these 20 ideas?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#57

Post by byefruit »

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 did you ensure you'd given each iteration a proper go? Are there any tips you can share for validating them that were effective?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#58

Post by bootstrapper101 »

wuschel wrote: post #26
bootstrapper101 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think that I can guarantee success. There was some angle of luck involved. However over time, because I am getting faster, I am getting more shots at the game. Earlier I could play one game over 2 years and make many mistake (which now look obvious to me) along the way. Now I can play multiple games every year. So that helps you build your own luck to some extent.

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

Drive and desire of learn would probably be biggest. No task is good or bad: If something has to be done it has to be done.

Acquiring more skills apart from programming: devops, product, hiring, management, sales, marketing, legal, accounting. This help you develop holistic view of your product and company.

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

Product for end consumer. The end product itself is not very high tech. I don't know a humble way to say it - but the tech powering the company is really well architected and managed.

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

This could be a 5000 word reply. In the end difficulties don't matter. Brutally prioritize and keep at it till you overcome it. Know when to cut your losses and move on.

> Q4 How long did it take to take off?

I had 3 products which saw good adoption. Only the current one is financially successful. Each of those took 1-2 months to build and we knew within a week that it was going to be successful.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#59

Post by nj999999 »

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…

This sounds awesome. Link to the product? Love seeing these kinds of businesses thrive.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#60

Post by nj999999 »

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…

What kind of consumer product? Just curious. Is the habit here to be vague for reasons of IP protection or something?
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