That’s only 50k euros per employee if taking 650k per year. What am I missing?
It’s €6,500,000 just this year, so €500,000 per employee.
10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
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Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#102That’s only 50k euros per employee if taking 650k per year. What am I missing?
6.5M is Annual Recurring Revenue, so it's 500k per employee.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think you're leaving a lot of money on the table 100% agree. Also, I'm completely fine with it. Money is not the end goal to me. > you’re adding existential risk to the business with your current strategy. There's risk in any strategy. The VC playbook of "grow quickly" carries its own dangers: product enshittification, cultural rot, jeopardizing the very thing that made the business work in the first place... > I…
Fellow bootstrapped founder for 8 years here, and I love and agree with your responses here. Having previously existed in the VC-backed startup world, one thing I don't miss is the belief that its the _only_ rational way to run a business. In reality there are a lot of dangers to that approach, like you pointed out. VCs _need_ promising businesses to join their portfolio, so they'll always be trying to convince you t…
BTW, I completely agree with this. VC economics create misalignment with founders as a matter of economics -- sometimes that's good, sometimes it's bad, but it's incredibly important for a founder to understand. I usually tell younger investors and entrepreneurs that they should think long and hard on the research that says a seed stage fund needs ~50 portfolio companies to get past random bad luck; it has implications for how you manage a fund, and how you think about founding one of those 50 companies both.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#104Extraordinary win, why not be profitable with strong growth without major dilution?
Hope to see you guys being written about in the same fashion as https://www.bvp.com/atlas/bootstrapping-to-100-million-arr-c...
down the road.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fellow small business owner here. Just as a reminder, discussing any successful (where successful is defined as not failed) business is a lesson in survivorship bias. Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years.
> Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years. I hear this all the time with variations to the number of years, which makes me suspect it isn’t true.
What part do you suspect isn’t true?
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#106> we achieved an EBIT margin of 65% isn't it sensitive to disclose this kind of info when you don't have to? are you worried about your employees all demanding raises when they see this?
It's Europe; salaries suck across the board. That's the market, so there are no competing offers. Then again it's incredibly hard to fire people. Maybe they should start a union after all.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years. I hear this all the time with variations to the number of years, which makes me suspect it isn’t true.
What part do you suspect isn’t true?
That a majority of businesses fail over a given duration of time. It’s probably true on a long-enough timescale, but the idea that the majority of businesses fail within one year or ten just seems completely dubious. How is a business defined? How is failure defined?
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#108> 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!
Errm I think me and my mates count as bootstrappers. Never heard the term before but we have paid off the mortgage on our premises and are decidedly boring.
We have three Directors and a slack handful of employees, that varies around 15 to 25 depending on customers, pandemics, Brexit and murderous Russians.
We incorporated in 2000. 25 years later, we are still trading, which is nice. We will never fiddle with unicorns or set the world on fire, we just want to get along comfortably and be able to sleep at night.
My top tip is to build up a current account balance that will cover the basics for your defined risk period. So, for us that period is six months. The basics are: Corporation tax, VAT and salaries. You'll note I don't mention director's remuneration - that's a nice to have (for me).
I have two customers at the moment that are dealing with going bankrupt, although one looks like they will be OK. I refuse to join them. Small business cash flow is hard, really hard. It's so easy to be tempted to do something daft or to ignore warning signs.
The world is a pretty hard place and not all tech companies get to spawn zillionares. You won't get to use my company as a poster child for funky ... whatever but we are still trading and I'm quite happy with that.
Napoleon disparagingly described Britain as a "nation of shop keepers" - I'll take that and wear it as a badge of honour 8)
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#109> 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!
What you dont see is the pain behind the scenes of a bootstrapped org. It always looks rosy outside.
Spin it!
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#110> 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!
What you dont see is the pain behind the scenes of a bootstrapped org. It always looks rosy outside.
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