Growing Our SaaS to $1M+ ARR: 7 People, 3 Years, No VC Money

Post by cm2012 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:03 PM UTC

the_bear wrote: post #73

pcprincipal wrote: post #61

Question for this company / anyone who runs similar businesses - is $1MM ARR enough to pay 7 people? I'd be interested to know what they do in EBITDA and how they think about salaries. This is actually a general question I have about start-ups. The economics of having a business that makes $1 - $10mm in revenue and hires 7 - 100ish people is still difficult for me to understand. Yes, you can raise equity or debt beca…

Yes, I think $1MM is enough to pay 7 people, although it depends a lot on the specifics. My business makes $2.2MM ARR and has 17 employees (counting the founders). We're profitable, although we try to put about as much money as we can afford back into growth, so we're right around break even. There are a number of factors to consider when thinking about whether this is "enough" money. Location - We're based in St. Lo…

Post by the_bear » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:12 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #111

the_bear wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think $1MM is enough to pay 7 people, although it depends a lot on the specifics. My business makes $2.2MM ARR and has 17 employees (counting the founders). We're profitable, although we try to put about as much money as we can afford back into growth, so we're right around break even. There are a number of factors to consider when thinking about whether this is "enough" money. Location - We're based in St. Lo…

I'm genuinely surprised you pay support almost as much as engineers. I guess your support is a competitive advantage in your niche?

Post by cm2012 » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

the_bear wrote: post #113

cm2012 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely surprised you pay support almost as much as engineers. I guess your support is a competitive advantage in your niche?

That's part of it, yes. The other part is that we pay engineers roughly market rate for our area, but we pay support significantly above that. Our philosophy is basically that everyone who works here should make a good living regardless of what their job is, so we're going to pay everyone that baseline. Certain employees (like engineers) might make more because the market demands it. To be more specific, we start our…

Post by aviv » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

charlesdm wrote: post #94

evermike wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! It feels that you are speaking from your own experience. Indeed, it's hard. But not everyone understands this.

Do you think having access to "cheaper" talent (I don't mean they're worse in skill, but I guess there are less opportunities for capable engineers in Belarus) is a huge competitive advantage? Do you think you would have been able to build the same business in say London?

Post by jwr » Mon, Oct 01, 2018, 6:53 PM UTC

evermike wrote: post #109

andyidsinga wrote: post #103

> (6) Finding your promotional Channel This is really interesting and helpful. We've found generating leads for our SaaS [1] difficult, with similar results from google ad words and really bad results from LinkedIn ads. In retrospect, talking to some friends about google ad words, the results aren't so surprising, but I'm glad we went through the experience. This note from the article rings very true: > Plus you shou…

Yep, that's true. I would also advise you to devote some time and collect feedback on such sites as Capterra, G2Crowd, TrustPilot, TrustRadius. Firstly, people search and read reviews before making their final decision. Secondly, reading about the competitors, they will find you. Third, sometimes bloggers use these sites to select the top 10 tools they will write about. If you are there - awesome. And finally, these…