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We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

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191–200 of 225 posts

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#191
post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't read any such tone. He's quite fact oriented. You may want to introspect into what you are bringing into the reading as your own context.

it's a combination of it being a brand new (potentially throwaway) account, me potentially misunderstanding what is meant by claiming 20m annual profit for 3 people is "staying low", and the limits of text communication

No worries.

Glad that we could figure this out like reasonable adults.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? Every study on arranged marriages I've seen points to lower divorce rates and higher general happiness. Assuming your parents aren't assholes they'll try and do right by their kids. And the nice thing about an arranged marriage is that it's two people not following some illusions of effortless love and happiness, but two people coming together to collaboratively build that love and happiness.

Uh, yeah. One of my great grandmothers was in an actual arranged marriage at age 14 to a man who was like 60 years old. She managed to get out of that one, but had to marry another man (my great grandfather, who I never met) to do it. It was a different world back then, but compressing generations to the point where you are able to know your great grandparents usually requires some creative accounting that wouldn't f…

It was a different world, but it sounds as though the first marriage was irrelevant to the timeline of you knowing her.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#193
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much is a substantial fraction and who determines that? Is it a simple fraction or does it depend on the market and competitive landscape? Is it something governments should regulate or should consumers vote with their wallets? Companies should adhere to regulations though, no arguments there.

> How much is a substantial fraction and who determines that I determine that and I say +80% , you dont get weasel out of this with useless semantic distinctions. > Is it a simple fraction As oppose to a "complex" one? > Is it something governments should regulate or should consumers vote with their wallets? The company owners should be ethical enough to pay that. Do you use this kind of sophistry to justify your com…

You either don’t understand human nature and economic incentives or you don’t care. You’re either ignorant or authoritarian.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get to the decision makers to pitch your idea? Unless you were already well connected, I presume it wasn't easy to get attention from the right people.

I pitched my ideas just twice and got some funding for them. However either my approach was wrong or I wasn't working with the right people. I felt that funding was too big of a waste of time. Without traction, everything I did was being second guessed. And too much time was being wasted pitching. I haven't raised any money for 20+ of my ideas including the current one. But I can imagine it would be easier for me to…

How did you approach other businesses to sell them something? I presume your business is b2b.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#195
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much is a substantial fraction and who determines that I determine that and I say +80% , you dont get weasel out of this with useless semantic distinctions. > Is it a simple fraction As oppose to a "complex" one? > Is it something governments should regulate or should consumers vote with their wallets? The company owners should be ethical enough to pay that. Do you use this kind of sophistry to justify your com…

You either don’t understand human nature and economic incentives or you don’t care. You’re either ignorant or authoritarian.

Ignorant and authoritarian tend to go hand in hand.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#196
post #150

The best part? Every penny of that $11M ARR is yours to spend however you wish. Nobody's going to question you if you take your company's money and spend it on a private helicopter or a summer beach home in Cyprus (all easily affordable for $11M). If you had accepted even a tiny pre-seed investment, you wouldn't have that freedom - the company's money is not yours, and although you could live comfortably on executive…

[deleted]

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#197
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How much is a substantial fraction and who determines that I determine that and I say +80% , you dont get weasel out of this with useless semantic distinctions. > Is it a simple fraction As oppose to a "complex" one? > Is it something governments should regulate or should consumers vote with their wallets? The company owners should be ethical enough to pay that. Do you use this kind of sophistry to justify your com…

You either don’t understand human nature and economic incentives or you don’t care. You’re either ignorant or authoritarian.

OK I am ignorant authoritarian, now please work for me for 1USD/h. Put up or shut up.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#198

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?

You sound like you might think ideas have to be innovative but go look at how many CRM solutions are out there. CMS. Email marketing automation. Etc.

None of them are perfect. None of them can satisfy every single potential customer. You can build yet another one to satisfy some small unhappy segment of the huge market.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#199

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/

Shameless related plug, I run https://www.trypaper.io/ which helps SaaS companies find non-dilutive funding. I don't think Bootstrap needs to mean "no outside capital". There are capital sources out there that align with what most bootstrappers value (e.g. retaining control of their company, calm growth, etc.).

FYI there seems to be no way to sign up.

Re: We bootstrapped to $11M in ARR

#200

Seems to be a lot of questions about how bootstrapped startups handle customer support. I'm the cofounder of Eureka Surveys. We're bootstrapped, profitable, and just crossed 1M+ users. We've had an amazing experience hiring customer support in the Philippines. I have a thread about it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/t0mstah/status/1356296043009253382 The tl;dr is that you can hire cheap ($3.50/hr), high quality virtu…

- Cheap, high-quality, free-from-exploitation. Pick 2. Spare me the "Life is cheaper in the 3-world non-sense"

> Spare me the "Life is cheaper in the 3-world non-sense"

You obviously don't know what you're talking about.

I'm from Brazil. If you paid me $40.000 yearly to work remotely i would be a top 3%~ earner.

This would entitle me to:

- Renting a 60m2 2bdr, 2bath appartment in a top neighbourhood of São Paulo

- Having a really nice car (by brazillian standards)

- Top notch health insurance in the most respected hospitals in Latin America

- Easily keeping 1/4 of the money for investments and private pension

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