Congrats, but the grammar was off-putting :(
How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
141–150 of 159 posts
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
This blew way out of proportion. Misleading people was never the intent. We just wanted to share our story and give a little more "human" touch to our about-us page by sharing the journey. Title was amended. Have a good week-end HN!
For what it's worth, I think people are nit picking rather than crying foul. It's a great story, thanks for sharing it!
seems more like a little bit of both.
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#143So if your highest pricing tier on the website is $249 that means you've got circa 4,000 clients right? Or do you have one big client that owns you a little bit because they contribute such a large percentage of your revenue? Not saying I don't believe the numbers, would just love to understand the makeup of your client base.
Their $1m figure is Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), so they just need $83k per month (or 333 clients paying the $249 per month).
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
If tomorrow you decided to go and raise $100k from an angel (or if you received a $100k small business grant) to pay off your credit card debt and replenish some of your savings, I wouldn't immediately kick you out of the "bootstrapped founder" community. I see your point though. There is "pure 100% bootstrapped" and "mostly bootstrapped, but not completely". IMO it's a spectrum. Just like the term "startup" - it's a…
If you raise $100k from an angel then you were a bootstrapped company and now you aren't. No spectrum. No complications. No twisting of words. Very simple.
I fail to see the benefit of subscribing to a viewpoint that is so black and white, and why definition that allows for no exception is necessary.
If we are taking things to the extreme, I could argue that Visa/Mastercard is your investor considering you maxed out your credit cards, you’re spending someone else’s money by doing that. And just like convertible notes or debt financing, you’ll have to pay it back. Convertible notes typically provide the option for the investor to demand cash repayment after a certain amount of time has elapsed, same as your credit card company.
These silly semantics are why I think it’s more practical to define bootstrapping as an operational philosophy/mindset rather than a strict binary financial definition.
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why do we want to suddenly stretch the meaning of bootstrap? Because VCs increase the risk that a company will turn to shit.
Doesn't make it okay to stretch the meaning of something that is well established. Not all VCs are bad, not all companys funded by VC money turn into crap. Not all VCs use the same model. It would be best to explain this. Like I mentioned, why not plainly explain that they did all this with just seed money? That's a really amazing accomplishment in and of itself, and nuance is something that can be explained. Not to…
We don't disagree!
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#146Congratulations! 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
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Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#147Congratulations! 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
This blew way out of proportion. Misleading people was never the intent. We just wanted to share our story and give a little more "human" touch to our about-us page by sharing the journey. Title was amended. Have a good week-end HN!
I might speak for some of those critical by saying that you got my attention with the "bootstrap" hook but immediately lost it when I saw the funding. At that point I had a hard time believing and following the rest. This might seem like a small nit, but it comes to the honesty and intent of the piece. Good job getting our attention tho. And pay attention to the details.
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#148Congratulations. I look forward to watching where ScrapingBee will be in another few years. This is certainly a gap in the market which you can fill.
This new look for your website is also great. What front end framework + back end stack are you using?
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#149Congrats! Lmk if you need help with anti-bot problems ;)
Re: How we bootstrapped our SaaS to $1M ARR
#150Earlier 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…
As another bootstrapped founder, I disagree with you. "Our standard terms are for 10-12% equity." The moment you give equity in exchange for money no matter whether its tinyseed or whatever, you are not bootstrapping. Your financial risk is lower because you don't have to pay this money back if your company fails. That is not called bootstrapping. I bootstrapped with my own money AND some smaller loans which I am ful…
I think some people would not consider it bootstrapped if you have any outside loans. Usually bootstrapped means you funded the growth of the business with it's own revenue only. While small loans wouldn't matter much, to me, if someone gets a small million dollar loan from their daddy to start the business, it's not bootstrapped.