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We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

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Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#61

Post by bootstrapper101 »

byefruit wrote: post #57
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…

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?

We kept an iteration going as long as we saw a reasonable and viable path to keep growing the business.

One of the product was consumer and had a hockey stick growth curve obvious in the first week. So it was obvious to keep going on.

Another product was profitable and we could acquire new customers through advertising. So it was obvious to keep going on.

For the one's that didn't do good, initially I wasted a lot of time doing things which won't meaningfully help with adoption. Some of them are:

1. Building too many features.

2. Building too many platforms at launch.

3. Spending time on PR

4. Figuring out the perfect font for the website.

5. UI polish.

Over time you develop better heuristics. You can't ever be fully right but you just get somewhat better judgement.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#62

Post by austinjp »

artemonster wrote: post #56
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…

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?

Personally I have at least one business idea every day, probably due to some neuro-divergence issues. The problem is determining which are worth pursuing.

By their own admission, OP's 20+ ideas didn't work.

You only need one, it just has to be the right one :)

Snark aside, I guess receptivity to novelty is critical when pivoting. At that point, though, the pivot should be based on data. Creativity is still required, constrained by the data. I believe that's more amenable to being 'engineered' rather than just waiting for the muse to arrive.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#63

Post by bootstrapper101 »

artemonster wrote: post #56
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…

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?

Don't over think. Just start building anything that you feel could be useful to someone.

Don't fall in love with the idea. The idea you start with will never be the idea when you are successful. It will evolve or likely you will pivot to another related idea. Facebook today isn't what it started with. Flickr and Slack started as gaming companies. Google today is very different from what they started with.

It would help if you pick a good space. Ideally something which you know about, is big enough that there would be enough users.

And make sure you enjoy the process of going for it. If you set out with a sole goal to get rich and get famous, it can be very demotivating when things are not going your way.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#64

Post by [deleted] »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #61
byefruit wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

We kept an iteration going as long as we saw a reasonable and viable path to keep growing the business. One of the product was consumer and had a hockey stick growth curve obvious in the first week. So it was obvious to keep going on. Another product was profitable and we could acquire new customers through advertising. So it was obvious to keep going on. For the one's that didn't do good, initially I wasted a lot of…

[deleted]

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#65

Post by texasbigdata »

nj999999 wrote: post #60
bootstrapper101 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why do you feel he has to disclose when he openly shared child birth struggles while you use a throw away?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#66

Post by baxtr »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #39
baxtr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super interesting. How did you make money when you were testing 25 ideas? How did you and your family survive and how did you finance the iterations? 25 ideas and 3 months equals 6 years? So did you try that long to find a sticking idea?

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…

Oh man. Wow. Incredible. I am really really glad it worked out well for you. I am in the same position like you were. I never want to go back to corporate hell, so my ideas have to work :D

What was your biggest lesson? Is there one thing you would do differently now if you could?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#67

Post by robertlagrant »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #46
randomsearch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We delayed having kids because of this and that is my biggest regret. Don't answer if this is too personal - but why the regret? It sounds like you have had kids, so perhaps it got harder? Or you had fewer than you wanted. Why do you regret it?

Every year you delay having kids, you are reducing the amount of time you will spend with your kids and grandkids. As you get older, the quality of time you spend with them will also get worse. My wife went through lot of difficulties in her pregnancies. It would have been easier for her body, if we had kids earlier. My drive to get out of the corporate slavery was the reason for the delay. So I regret the delay.

This is exactly right - I've had my kids in my mid 30s, and while there are upsides, there are downsides.

At a friend's wedding, his great grandmother was there. Hearing that, I realised there is an amazing upside to having kids a little earlier.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#68

Post by bootstrapper101 »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #30
bootstrapper101 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Think about how many non-basic need products that you know which consumers pay which is not some kind of exclusive or monopoly: Utilities, Cable, Cell phone, NetflixEtc, Uber*.

Today's consumer doesn't like to pay for anything, especially if it is a digital product. They will do whatever they can to get out of paying either by pirating or trying to get a refund/chargeback after using it.

Sometimes they will do an impulse buy. Which is what we were able to work for us, but then bad actors try to make your life as miserable as possible.

B2B is not rosy and has its own set of issues. But I would rather kick 50 ungrateful users from the platform to their face, rather than deal with 10k ungrateful consumers.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#69

Post by artemonster »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #46
randomsearch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We delayed having kids because of this and that is my biggest regret. Don't answer if this is too personal - but why the regret? It sounds like you have had kids, so perhaps it got harder? Or you had fewer than you wanted. Why do you regret it?

Every year you delay having kids, you are reducing the amount of time you will spend with your kids and grandkids. As you get older, the quality of time you spend with them will also get worse. My wife went through lot of difficulties in her pregnancies. It would have been easier for her body, if we had kids earlier. My drive to get out of the corporate slavery was the reason for the delay. So I regret the delay.

How old are you now, if I may? Were you having your kids in late 40ies?

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#70

Post by [deleted] »

bootstrapper101 wrote: post #46
randomsearch wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We delayed having kids because of this and that is my biggest regret. Don't answer if this is too personal - but why the regret? It sounds like you have had kids, so perhaps it got harder? Or you had fewer than you wanted. Why do you regret it?

Every year you delay having kids, you are reducing the amount of time you will spend with your kids and grandkids. As you get older, the quality of time you spend with them will also get worse. My wife went through lot of difficulties in her pregnancies. It would have been easier for her body, if we had kids earlier. My drive to get out of the corporate slavery was the reason for the delay. So I regret the delay.

[deleted]
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