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ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

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Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#11

Post by jacquesm »

dangrossman wrote: post #9

I loathe cold sales e-mails/calls myself, but this almost makes me want to hire sales people for Improvely.

People don't do it because they don't loath cold callers themselves they do it because it works.

One example: when I was selling licensed software I don't think I ever managed more than $100K in annual sales (which to me seemed easy money). Enter Marco, my first employee.

Before the year was out we had nice sales documentation to go with the products, the beginnings of a brand and $600K in sales...

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#12

Post by _vufv »

I'm aware that market is possibly the best kind of fitness evaluator for what kind of ideas the world needs - but every time I see smart people getting excited about making good money by doing what's been done so many times before makes me sad. These kind of stories should be a hopeful example for people who are not yet able to make a comfortable living, but as a community we shouldn't glorify them nearly as much as we do at the moment.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#14

Post by karambahh »

jacquesm wrote: post #6
karambahh wrote: post #3

«Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. This achievement is very impressive nonetheless. Growing a business even in a known environment is very hard, I know it first hand. It's especially interesting that he shares numbers, some I'd love to be able to do but money is particularly taboo in my field. Having your accountant and banker tell you that your numbers are a…

> «Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. That's exactly what it is. $55K is next to nothing for starting any kind of company, even if you quit your job and start as a freelancer (arguably the simplest kind of company) you'll need some capital to catch you if you have a dry spell. Business that get started on $0 are extremely rare.

It is ten times the median savings an american family has [1]

Once again I am not diminishing his accomplishments. I started my own company with the same amount of money but never claimed to have "bootstrapped"it.

We on HN live in a bubble that amazes me. I know first hand how much it costs to start a company and how hard it is to raise a 1M€ (I heard it is as hard as raising 10M$ in the valley, but never tried to raise in the US so take that with a grain of salt!). I also know it is much, much harder to get your first 1M€ of revenue. Like one of my business angel once told me "il nest de bon argent que celui du client": the only good kind of money is the customer's.

[1]http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/12/heres-how-much-the-average-am...

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#16

Post by djb_hackernews »

> concierge migrations

This was a hack I used on an eventually failed software venture. We were in an incubator and had about $10k and the start of a pivot. We hired 3 contractors to build an MVP in about 2 weeks. We focused on the core functionality of the product. Since we used Rails we also were able to use a module that gave us a nice admin UI around our data model. This let us do the data entry for pilot members while we got feedback on the core product. Since we were providing a way for vendors to sell products with complex facets (prices in multiple currencies, descriptions in multiple languages, complex product availability etc) we could control the data entry and also avoid building complex wizard UIs for users that surely would be given up on with our limited value prop at the time.

Thinking back on that hack I think it is definitely something I'd do again.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#17

Post by sixQuarks »

karambahh wrote: post #3

«Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. This achievement is very impressive nonetheless. Growing a business even in a known environment is very hard, I know it first hand. It's especially interesting that he shares numbers, some I'd love to be able to do but money is particularly taboo in my field. Having your accountant and banker tell you that your numbers are a…

are you kidding me? This guy is the definition of bootstrapped. How do you think he got that $55K? He was bootstrapping design courses - I've been following this guy for a few years.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#18

Post by dvcc »

pdog wrote: post #2

Great interview. Most people would have given up after two years of zero growth and paltry revenue.

It's probably not a favorable idea here, but luck probably plays a large part in converting from X to Y a month. Of course, perseverance over a two-year period increases your chances, so it still has a ton of value.

Re: ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business

#19

Post by jacquesm »

karambahh wrote: post #14
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> «Bootstrapped» with 55k$ and an already succesful business is not exactly boostrapping to me. That's exactly what it is. $55K is next to nothing for starting any kind of company, even if you quit your job and start as a freelancer (arguably the simplest kind of company) you'll need some capital to catch you if you have a dry spell. Business that get started on $0 are extremely rare.

It is ten times the median savings an american family has [1] Once again I am not diminishing his accomplishments. I started my own company with the same amount of money but never claimed to have "bootstrapped"it. We on HN live in a bubble that amazes me. I know first hand how much it costs to start a company and how hard it is to raise a 1M€ (I heard it is as hard as raising 10M$ in the valley, but never tried to ra…

> It is ten times the median savings an american family has

The median American family is not trying to start a business.

Also: if you can't manage your own funds and save please don't start a company, it will most likely not work and create misery for yourself and others.

> Once again I am not diminishing his accomplishments. I started my own company with the same amount of money but never claimed to have "bootstrapped"it.

Well, that's a problem of definition more than anything else. If you want to use the term bootstrapping as starting with nothing that's fine by me but I do note that even the word assumes the presence of boots and straps.

The key question is if the money was yours or not. If it wasn't then you weren't bootstrapping.

> We on HN live in a bubble that amazes me.

No, you choose to use terms in ways that are different from the rest of us. That's not a bubble, that's a terms issue. This can make communication hard.

> I know first hand how much it costs to start a company and how hard it is to raise a 1M€ (I heard it is as hard as raising 10M$ in the valley, but never tried to raise in the US so take that with a grain of salt!).

That depends. There is a lot of 'stupid money' floating around.

Besides, raising money is explicitly not part of bootstrapping.

> I also know it is much, much harder to get your first 1M€ of revenue.

Yes, that's true.

> Like one of my business angel once told me "il nest de bon argent que celui du client": the only good kind of money is the customer's.

Yes, that's good advice, but it comes from an investor.

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