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

datocms.com

111–120 of 132 posts

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

#111
post #106
post #90

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#112
Cool read. So where are the "bootstrapped founder" communities? We're here right now commenting about this on the biggest VC community out there. I get that the flashiness and capital of VC means that this will always attract 100x more people. But it seems strange that there aren't any (?) for bootstrapped founders.. at all. Unless it's just Indiehackers? But the vibes there seem very different from the ones of DatoCMS. Maybe I'm just misreading the room though. Or maybe there's an opportunity here?

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

#113
post #90

> 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?

the alternative is a VC-backed startup with millions in the bank. employees aren't clueless, just pay people fairly.

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

#114
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You don’t need to wonder, that information is readily verifiable. Most businesses fail. https://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmage.htm

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

#115
post #90

> 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?

But employees get a part of the cake too! If profits are high, we all celebrate together! During 2025, 7% of the profits have been shared with our employees (and stable freelancers). In 2024 it was 6%.

https://www.datocms.com/company/profit-sharing

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

#116
post #106
post #90

> 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.

I don’t give employees (and stable freelancers/contractors) the minimum I can get away with; I give them a fair share of the profits on top of their regular salary.

I’m not sure how common this model is in Europe, but it has certainly helped me keep my best employee with me throughout the entire journey and feel much less alone in my decisions—especially at the beginning, when things are harder.

Plus, it's just more fun to share when you can.

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

#117
post #91

> We spent the winter prototyping (experimenting with everything from bare metal to alternative PaaS providers — some of which shall remain unnamed to protect the guilty mind at least naming what to look out for when evaluating PaaSes?

For us it was a performance issue. We load tested DBs and servers with our real app and found out Heroku (notoriously known for being stuck in 2010) performed better then some more recent competitor.

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

#118
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!

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 unicorn…

There's some real gems in this comment.

> we have paid off the mortgage on our premises and are decidedly boring

We too like to call us boring :) This kind of boring is so good.

> 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.

On one hand 25 years in business is a mind-blowing achievement. But at the same time, just "nice" is the right way to see it. Being comfortable and sleep well at night is exactly what we all want. You don't need to set the world on fire to be proud of what you do!

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

#119
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kudos to you! What’s your current venture, if I may ask?

Run an LMS product. https://academyofmine.com Working on a big pivot for next year. Funny but the pivot is to go more headless but for learning platform. Would follow your journey going forward.

LMS stands for Learning Management System, I didn't know.

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

#120
post #91

> We spent the winter prototyping (experimenting with everything from bare metal to alternative PaaS providers — some of which shall remain unnamed to protect the guilty mind at least naming what to look out for when evaluating PaaSes?

For us it was a performance issue. We load tested DBs and servers with our real app and found out Heroku (notoriously known for being stuck in 2010) performed better then some more recent competitor.

very nice! i like seeing Heroku and Digital Ocean hang in there and win
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