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10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

datocms.com

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Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#11

Post by steffoz »

abc123abc123 wrote: post #6
Doches wrote: post #4

> We're not bragging (okay, we're bragging a little) but it turns out that not burning through VC cash on ping-pong tables and "growth at all costs" actually works. Have an internet fist-bump from a fellow successful bootstrapper; this is the way, and you're calling it out!

This is the way! As a fellow bootstrapper let me also add the infinite value of peace of mind. Your business is your own, and you can focus on earnings, quality of life, growth, what ever you like, without annoying VC:s and investors telling you what to do. As soon as you take in money, the businesses at some level, ceases to be yours. The only flaw is that with bootstrapping and one step at a time, it is more diffic…

Unicorn-level sounds extremely stressful, happy to pass the burden to someone else. I seriously can't imagine a sane lifestyle that requires more money than what we already have.

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#12

Post by steffoz »

rexreed wrote: post #7
Doches wrote: post #4

> We're not bragging (okay, we're bragging a little) but it turns out that not burning through VC cash on ping-pong tables and "growth at all costs" actually works. Have an internet fist-bump from a fellow successful bootstrapper; this is the way, and you're calling it out!

YES! I want to find more stories like this. Where can I find Bootstrappers or seedstrappers who have successfully scaled their companies past a few million in revenue with very small teams?

I know https://tinyteams.xyz/ but it's not specific to bootstrapped companies!

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#13

Post by jacquesm »

steffoz wrote: post #11
abc123abc123 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the way! As a fellow bootstrapper let me also add the infinite value of peace of mind. Your business is your own, and you can focus on earnings, quality of life, growth, what ever you like, without annoying VC:s and investors telling you what to do. As soon as you take in money, the businesses at some level, ceases to be yours. The only flaw is that with bootstrapping and one step at a time, it is more diffic…

Unicorn-level sounds extremely stressful, happy to pass the burden to someone else. I seriously can't imagine a sane lifestyle that requires more money than what we already have.

Not only that, the vast bulk of unicorn wanna-be's end up failing (sometimes failing upwards though) and then it is all for nothing.

Aiming for the middle ground: reasonable growth, good financial strategies based on unit cost profitability and a very tight hand on the purse will get you a solid business that can serve as the jump off point for many other things on top of giving the founders a much better shot at financial independence. This is all a variation on the risk/reward theme.

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#14

Post by jacquesm »

That's excellent by any metric. Most larger successful companies have a very hard time consistently breaking the 200K / employee / year turnover level and this is 2.5 times that. On top of that they are indestructible, with that much left on the table a couple of years of solid saving and you can start thinking about much larger projects, and still without outside financing.

10 years is long and if we take the revenues as linearly changing over time and the costs growing roughly linear along with it then years two and three must have been quite difficult, expectations need to be met but the money wasn't really there yet. But now there is.

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#16

Post by steffoz »

jacquesm wrote: post #14

That's excellent by any metric. Most larger successful companies have a very hard time consistently breaking the 200K / employee / year turnover level and this is 2.5 times that. On top of that they are indestructible, with that much left on the table a couple of years of solid saving and you can start thinking about much larger projects, and still without outside financing. 10 years is long and if we take the revenu…

Thank you! It was never an all-in bet for us, so we never struggled too much tbh. It slowly grew inside our web agency as a part-time side-quest, and only when we reached an OK level of revenues that could feed our families it became a full-time job and an actual funded company.

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#18

Post by kubb »

le-mark wrote: post #15

The website is pretty good. My initial reaction was “A CMS? How can yet another CMS be profitable”. The copy on the homepage explains it pretty well. Congrats on the success.

It’s funny because I have no concept of why this kind of infrastructure is needed and by whom.

Replicating this success would be impossible for me because I wouldn’t understand that there are people out there with this need, and how to find them.

Not that I need to replicate it. It would be cool to have that cashflow. But the chances of getting it are slim.

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#19

Post by steffoz »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
steffoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unicorn-level sounds extremely stressful, happy to pass the burden to someone else. I seriously can't imagine a sane lifestyle that requires more money than what we already have.

Not only that, the vast bulk of unicorn wanna-be's end up failing (sometimes failing upwards though) and then it is all for nothing. Aiming for the middle ground: reasonable growth, good financial strategies based on unit cost profitability and a very tight hand on the purse will get you a solid business that can serve as the jump off point for many other things on top of giving the founders a much better shot at fin…

To be fair, it's rarely all for nothing for what I hear. Secondary stock sales [1] are very common and allow founders to take some big chips off the table. To me, it is more a matter of keeping things simple, manageable, safe and more fun for how I like to work :)

https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/founders-guide-to-secondary...

Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13

#20

Post by YJfcboaDaJRDw »

jacquesm wrote: post #14

That's excellent by any metric. Most larger successful companies have a very hard time consistently breaking the 200K / employee / year turnover level and this is 2.5 times that. On top of that they are indestructible, with that much left on the table a couple of years of solid saving and you can start thinking about much larger projects, and still without outside financing. 10 years is long and if we take the revenu…

Agreed. What stands out to me is not just the revenue per employee, but the optionality it creates. Getting past that threshold buys you resilience and patience suddenly you can absorb slower years, fund bigger bets internally, and avoid being forced into bad financing decisions.
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