That’s only 50k euros per employee if taking 650k per year. What am I missing?
It’s €6,500,000 just this year, so €500,000 per employee.
Oh. Yeah that’s very different then. My bad.
10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
121–130 of 132 posts
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you dont see is the pain behind the scenes of a bootstrapped org. It always looks rosy outside.
Spin it!
To begin with theres always have cashflow issues. If it simple subscription based not so much but when it is more b2b enterprise stuff, theres always payment delays that can lead of delayed salaries.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#123Congratulations on the success - you’re rightly proud, and that amount of cashflow brings real stability to owners and employees. I’m a former VC, and a former CMS company founder (late 1990s for the CMS side, competing with Genuity for instance), and I’m impressed at your margins and success delivering CMS tools, but I think you’re leaving a lot of money on the table and although you don’t realize it, you’re adding…
> much of the value of the thought and engineering and architectural work you’ve done is published with your APIs, developer tools, and so on.
I disagree. I work for a similar company, and what customers appreciate is how solid the software is, the dedicated, straightforward and competent customer support, the lack of enshittification and rent-seeking. You tend to not get that with large or high-growth companies. They may nominally provide the same API, but everything else is more likely to be a pain.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to hear. Why exactly?
Well, for a start, you guys brag about having great margins, which is not a problem in itself, but as a potential customer, it gives me the impression that the product could be cheaper. Then it's all self-congratulatory, with overemphasis that I find lacking taste. Just my personal opinion...
I would say after somebody spends years not tooting their own horn, when a bit finally comes out I wouldn't let it bother me even if it's more exuberant than others who do it all the time.
I understand that most people who do it as a habit are often mostly exaggerating, and that's what doesn't really inspire me.
In Texas there's a common saying, "No brag, just fact."
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#125Earlier 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?
Ignoring the available data indicating that it is the case, I'm curious about why this seems dubious to you in the first place?
Starting and maintaining a functioning business is difficult; the default outcome is failure (the end of the business as an operating entity) and you have to work to prevent that from happening every day that you want to remain open.
And I've never seen a claim that the majority of businesses fail in a year. Most anecdotes say a majority fail within 5 years, which seems to be approximately correct based on US data.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spin it!
To begin with theres always have cashflow issues. If it simple subscription based not so much but when it is more b2b enterprise stuff, theres always payment delays that can lead of delayed salaries.
Maybe it depends on the type of business/ customers that you have because I've had the opposite experience. For us as a security SaaS, B2B enterprise is incredibly stable and predictable. B2C has a lot more variability and payment issues compared to large orgs with dedicated procurement departments, vendor processes etc.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
YES! I want to find more stories like this. Where can I find Bootstrappers or seedstrappers who have successfully scaled their companies past a few million in revenue with very small teams?
I know https://tinyteams.xyz/ but it's not specific to bootstrapped companies!
This is literally an anti-list of bootstrapped
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#128Wow! Congrats to you and the team. Fellow bootstrapper here, roughly in your ballpark - €4M+ revenue, team of 18, bootstrapped for 12 years. Only bootstrappers understand the bootstrap hustle ;) But what an amazing business you have built there - be proud, you deserve it. Let me share a personal founder story if I may: after 12 years of building the company, I decided to step down as CEO, moved on and spent the last…
Would love to read more on this, any blog post or writing available?
Big kudos. Such an inspiration.
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#129> 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.
What are you even referring to?
Salaries in many European countries are perfectly fine when compared to the costs of living etc.
Inflated salaries with inflated prices for everything else aren‘t just better because the number is higher ^^
Re: 10 years bootstrapped: €6.5M revenue with a team of 13
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What are you even referring to? Salaries in many European countries are perfectly fine when compared to the costs of living etc. Inflated salaries with inflated prices for everything else aren‘t just better because the number is higher ^^
There's more to it than just "inflated salaries with inflated prices".
I took a 70% pay cut moving from Silicon Valley back to Europe. Sure, my monthly expenses were also about 70% less, and I was able to save roughly the same relative proportion of money.
The main difference is that, in absolute terms, what I was saving in the US before I moved amounted to more than what I was taking home after tax in Europe, let alone saving. That buying power went much farther (for a variety of reasons). Whether it was electronics, trips, a new car, etc, I could afford way more luxury there, with much less impact to my bottom line.
I have no regrets. My perceived quality of life is much better now.