If you would like some advice I am more than happy to connect. I've written books on SaaS selling and SaaS customer success, and if nothing else know a lot of folks in the space.
Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
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Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#12I am similar -- I took a small boostraped venture to $1.3m ARR in about 3 years. To this day i almost spend $0 marketing. Email me so we can connect or whatsapp somid3 /\-at-*_- gmail ^dot& com or +1 five-1-zero 499 5497.
Btw, congratulations! my venture is also a saas digital only
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#13Wow, this is really inspiring! As a college student under lockdown, building something like this would be my dream. I have so many questions: How do you manage to juggle the responsibilities of school and running your business? What kind of technical expertise do you need? How did you find your idea and gain traction? Do you have employees?
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#14You're already in one of the best communities there is: Hacker News. Don't underestimate what you can learn just by carefully reading the threads here. I went from "idea in my dorm room" to interviewing and hiring executives in their 40s and 50s within 24 months. The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than the…
Thanks, yeah I discovered HN about a year ago and it is a wonderful source of entertainment and valuable information
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#15Here is a piece of actionable advice.
Join a supoort community in your area. You are looking for something for entrepeneurs in holland ideally. These usually have a price of admission like $300/yr but can be worth every cent
For example, ecommercefuel is fantastic for ecomm sites. Mastermind may have something to offer for your geography. Its going to boil down to reputation and how much you put in too.
You need a forum of entrepeneurs for people that are dealing with the same issues as you: payroll issues, VAT issues, engineering best practices, accounting advice, dealing with fraud, chargebacks, churn prevention, sales , banking contacts, brand registration and protection, outsourcing copy, and most importantly, advice on how to hire key staff
As you can see, its a lot. You need a whole village to figure that out. I am not sure whats out there for EU virtual "villages" for SaaS, but HN may be able to help.
From one entrepr3neur to other: if you dont have a crm already for sales leads, and your sales cycle is not self serviced, try the streak plugin for gsuite.
Good luck.
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#16My current sass startup I bootstrap to 20 million arr in 4 years before raising money. This my third software company bootstrapping to millions in arr. Shoot me a message down to give you whatever advice I can and intro you to other people who have been on this journey. Gmail account is Oconnoroisin
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#17Wow, this is really inspiring! As a college student under lockdown, building something like this would be my dream. I have so many questions: How do you manage to juggle the responsibilities of school and running your business? What kind of technical expertise do you need? How did you find your idea and gain traction? Do you have employees?
Balancing study and work is REALLY hard (and source of struggle with my parents, which I totally understand :) . We managed to get an office on campus, so it's literally a 3min walk from the lecture hall to the office. Besides that, I was never big on "planning", but now I'm usually planning a month ahead on the uni assignments.
Mainly struggling with expanding the technical team. We have some freelancers, but developers in NL are harder to find than diamond.
How did we find the idea: actually came up with the idea during a meeting with teachers in high-school. They were complaining about the chaos the newly introduced laptops caused during classes. Then I learned the hard way that people that put money were their mouth is are your only real customers (yes, I got screwed over by my high school). Luckily, higher education is more willing to pay.
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#18Here is a piece of actionable advice. Join a supoort community in your area. You are looking for something for entrepeneurs in holland ideally. These usually have a price of admission like $300/yr but can be worth every cent For example, ecommercefuel is fantastic for ecomm sites. Mastermind may have something to offer for your geography. Its going to boil down to reputation and how much you put in too. You need a fo…
Thanks for the advice.
Not really familiar with "villages"
About the Sales, here is our "stack": Hubspot free + LinkedIn sales navigator + unlimited minutes on your phone
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#19I've never been in your exact situation but from personal experience stop writing "I'm yo and I did ", at best you'll get some patronising praise and at worst people will disregard what you say because of your age. Your work will speak for itself. Let your age be nothing more than a fun piece of trivia.
Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months
#20You're already in one of the best communities there is: Hacker News. Don't underestimate what you can learn just by carefully reading the threads here. I went from "idea in my dorm room" to interviewing and hiring executives in their 40s and 50s within 24 months. The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than the…
I would caution that Hacker News is both fairly biased towards a developers view of the world, and also often unrealistic when it comes to things outside of technology. As the technical founder the best thing you can do to grow is actually to spend time learning about management and also the non-technical aspects of running a business. I wouldn't rely on Hacker News for these things. Instead look for local entrepreneur round tables or social groups and hang out with the non-technical roles.