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How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

scrapingbee.com

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Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#11

Post by daolf »

capableweb wrote: post #7

Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now

Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest.

So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct.

But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this.

Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0).

TinySeed works even if they fund 8/7 figures businesses, and this was our goal. We had no money when we began (we went through most of our savings during our first venture), no family to raise an angel round and this solution was perfect for us.

The amount of money we got was nothing near what we could have had raising traditional money, but it allowed us to stay independent and grow at our own pace.

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#13

Post by daolf »

artembugara wrote: post #10

Kevin, Pierre: congrats! And thanks for all your help to the NewsCatcher team. We use ScrapingBee's SEO progress as a benchmark of growth. Also, to the HN crowd, we found out about TinySeed from ScrapingBee, and applied and got in for the next batch. We've grown from ~4k MRR to 16k MRR in 10 months. So, to anyone who consider apply to YC, I'd recommend to take a look at TinySeed: https://tinyseed.com/

Thank you Artem!

Wishing you all the best with NewsCatcher and happy that TinySeed is living up to your expectation.

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#14

Post by jgmmo »

daolf wrote: post #11
capableweb wrote: post #7

Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now

Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…

bootstrap = on your own. That's it.

You had some seed funding.

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#15

Post by mritchie712 »

capableweb wrote: post #7

Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now

TinySeed != traditional VC

The biggest problem most people have with traditional VC and thus prefer to "bootstrap" is the pressure to grow too fast. TinySeed has none of that pressure. Boostrapping vs VC is a spectrum and Scrapping Bee is clearly on the bootstrapped side of that spectrum.

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#16

Post by djbusby »

daolf wrote: post #11
capableweb wrote: post #7

Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now

Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…

Hmm, but TinySeed now as a position in your captable. They are outside money. I think bootstrap means 100% your own money and customer money (revenue)

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#17

Post by artembugara »

jgmmo wrote: post #14
daolf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…

bootstrap = on your own. That's it. You had some seed funding.

Founder of another TonySeed startup.

On your own can mean many things. I also burnt through my personal savings for the first year.

So. On your own is just “VC’ed yourself”

Taking money from TinySeed is very different than taking money from VC.

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#18

Post by hooande »

daolf wrote: post #11
capableweb wrote: post #7

Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now

Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…

Not sure why you needed the TinySeed money. It looks like you were only a few months away from $10k/mo, which seems near the boundary for sustainable income. Was there some investment you were able to make with the TinySeed money that pushed you over the line?

Maybe I missed this in your post, but did you utilize search advertising? That seems to be the most common and effective tool for short term growth

Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR

#20

Post by daolf »

hooande wrote: post #18
daolf wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…

Not sure why you needed the TinySeed money. It looks like you were only a few months away from $10k/mo, which seems near the boundary for sustainable income. Was there some investment you were able to make with the TinySeed money that pushed you over the line? Maybe I missed this in your post, but did you utilize search advertising? That seems to be the most common and effective tool for short term growth

So to be honest, we ran the math and never actually spent TinySeed money.

We could have mathematically made without it.

But three things to consider here:

- TS money multiplied our runway by 10 and really reduced the amount stress we've experienced. Especially with COVID, during which we experienced our first negative growth month

- We were able to finally pay ourselves above minimum wage (1,500$)

- The mentoring and advices which came out of the program, really made the whole difference.

Where we live, the startup ecosystem is basically 0, we don't know a lot of startup funders or experienced entrepreneur. It changes everything when you can ask a precise question about business and get a response from an expert in the next 6 hours.

We had call with mentors and other member of the community, basically a one hour free consulting with an expert, about SEO, copywriting, recruiting, sales, growth, and marketing and THIS does move the needle a lot.

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