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Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

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Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#31

Post by sdrinf »

jamroom wrote: post #24

Maybe it is just me, but I've never seen the reason for being "transparent" about internal business processes. While I am certain that the HN crowd here finds it interesting, our customers have never once asked us (in 8+ years) to divulge our monthly sales figures. We are 100% focused on our customers, and really don't worry what other entrepreneurs might think of our company. Does anyone here have any stats that sho…

It doesn't, but you miss an important point: essentially, the "product business community" -those, who are in for the long run- is a small one. The real ROI does not come from having more customers, but rather from business contacts, who can (and will) provide important info, and valuable insight, for you, at the right time, which will have real impact on your bottom line.

There are, of course, many others way to do that, than blogging. But the level of needed transparency is roughly the same.

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#32

Post by jamroom »

sdrinf wrote: post #31
jamroom wrote: post #24

Maybe it is just me, but I've never seen the reason for being "transparent" about internal business processes. While I am certain that the HN crowd here finds it interesting, our customers have never once asked us (in 8+ years) to divulge our monthly sales figures. We are 100% focused on our customers, and really don't worry what other entrepreneurs might think of our company. Does anyone here have any stats that sho…

It doesn't, but you miss an important point: essentially, the "product business community" -those, who are in for the long run- is a small one. The real ROI does not come from having more customers, but rather from business contacts, who can (and will) provide important info, and valuable insight, for you, at the right time, which will have real impact on your bottom line. There are, of course, many others way to do…

This is an interesting point - thank you. What would you consider the level of transparency to be? Does it mean sharing detailed revenue figures, or is it more about simply being open about your "growing pains"? Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#33

Post by cullenking »

ahoyhere wrote: post #12

Freckle earns nearly $10,000/mo in revenue: http://letsfreckle.com/ Our blog is kinda sparse now but I'm fairly open on HN. :) And I'll be writing more about business specifically at http://unicornfree.com/ . EDIT: Totally bootstrapped, launched Dec 2008. There are 4 of us, but I'm the owner. We have a profit-sharing agreement with our partners.

Thanks for making my day in two ways: a great example of a successful startup doing good things, and a pretty hilarious rant on your blog.

Bookmarked both the blog and the service!

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#34

Post by mikesimonsen »

_delirium wrote: post #27
mikesimonsen wrote: post #21

I'd suggest you set your sites higher than $1k/month. $10k/month is a start. $100k/month is a business that pays you and your employees. And there are zillions of them out there to learn from. My blog isn't about the internals of our business, but I'm happy to tell any bootstrapper who asks.

That depends on the expenses (incl. # of employees), doesn't it? The bootstrapped founders I know that I'd consider very successful don't make $100k/month, but they also don't have employees. A two-founder business with few expenses, clearing $20k/month profit, makes the founders $120k/yr apiece, which seems pretty successful to me. Certainly more than ramen-profitable, anyway!

Sure, you can have a "successful" business that grosses $250k / year. If you can do that with no employees and go surf every day, there will be a lot of jealous surfers out there.

But if you're looking to bootstrap a startup into a sustainable enterprise that "solves the money problem" (as Paul puts it), there are plenty of fabulous examples with $2million, $10mil, $50mil in revenue. Study them.

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#35

Post by cullenking »

While we haven't been too open about our business (lack of time!), http://ridewithgps.com qualifies on income and the fact we are bootstrapped. We are generating just under $1k a month in donations from users right now (yeah, just donations as we don't have our paid accounts ready yet), and a small licensing deal puts us over the top of those numbers.

We are working on becoming more transparent with our business, as there is decent appetite for any information in regards to the bootstrapping process. I think I just got motivated enough to write a decent blog post this evening.

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#36

Post by cullenking »

jamroom wrote: post #30
bemmu wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sort of indirect benefit, but I think patio11 will get more out of being open with BCC/Appointment Reminder than hurt by it. He's starting to become known, which will make it easier to find talent / co-founders / investors if he needs them later on. I doubt it will influence anyone to buy the software, though.

Yes - I definitely can see that being a plus. Can you think of any negatives though (besides hiring) that come from NOT being transparent? I think one of the biggest concerns small companies have is that divulging their monthly income can give their competition insights into their revenue stream and customer count - something that I know makes me a bit uneasy. But maybe there's a way to be more open/transparent witho…

Not all companies need or can even hide customer counts. In our business, one can easily guess our userbase by looking at how many maps are in our database. We could hide the total number, but a few simple searches would give a person an idea of what it is. As a result, we publish user counts and route counts. I don't think there are great benefits, aside from showing our users we are growing and have some substance, however, I also don't see there being much harm.

I can see a company that provides mockups or time management tools being able to hide this info (it's not intended to be publically consumed), but in our case it's difficult.

I guess creating a sense of complacency in the competition is a good thing. They might be more worried if they were watching huge growth in a competitor, but if the underdog is coming up with big growth anyway, there isn't much the market leader can do to prevent it...

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#37

Post by sdrinf »

jamroom wrote: post #32
sdrinf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't, but you miss an important point: essentially, the "product business community" -those, who are in for the long run- is a small one. The real ROI does not come from having more customers, but rather from business contacts, who can (and will) provide important info, and valuable insight, for you, at the right time, which will have real impact on your bottom line. There are, of course, many others way to do…

This is an interesting point - thank you. What would you consider the level of transparency to be? Does it mean sharing detailed revenue figures, or is it more about simply being open about your "growing pains"? Thanks!

The two most valuable insights I'm getting from the blogs mentioned above are: _context_, and _details_. Incidentally, revenue fits both (especially with patrick, where evolution is trackable).

To get the most value out of business partners, you generally have to put us into a position, where educated guesses can be made about which lever might give you the best ROI, and what you shouldn't pull too much.

You don't need detailed revenue figures to make this happen. But, you are in _business_. Your most important enabler is money. Business discussions relevance to business will be correlating with it's proximate to money.

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#38

Post by techiferous »

techiferous wrote: post #26

ServerDensity is a transparent bootstrapped startup. Product: http://serverdensity.com Blog: http://blog.boxedice.com/

Not sure why this was downvoted. This is (1) bootstrapped, (2) transparent (for example, http://blog.boxedice.com/2010/03/07/choosing-a-price-for-you... ) and (3) probably profitable, but I don't have the numbers.

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#39

Post by patio11 »

JangoSteve wrote: post #13

I guess I'm a successful bootstrapper by your definition. Revenues vary, but tens of multiples of your definition at this point (am I the only one that still feels weird about divulging this info in public?). I'm a single-founder. The startup is http://www.ratemystudentrental.com , which licenses private-label subscriptions to universities. I also have a consultancy that builds web-based software, and that consultanc…

am I the only one that still feels weird about divulging this info in public?

For me its kind of like boiling a frog. I get all kinds of queasy about telling people what my salary was (I was raised such that one just did not do that), but back when I was making all of $24.95 in sales a month well pfft no harm in saying that... and then all you have to do is "not stop".

Amusing cultural note: Japan is almost totally open about salaries. I didn't know what my father's approximate salary was until I was in my twenties. I don't know what my friends make now. Here, I've been asked it on second dates before, and the local sushi guy knew it without me even telling him. ("Well, duh: engineer in Nagoya + I know your age. What else could your salary be?!" And he's right.)

Re: Ask HN: successful, transparent bootstrappers?

#40

Post by wushupork »

modoc wrote: post #17

Two out of three ain't bad? While I'd like to blog about the internals and experience, we sell mostly in the B2B large corporation space, and our small size is our largest pain point during the sales cycle. I think an open blog about our internal business growth would make things worse for us, not better.

I agree. For B2B, they don't want to know about your dirty laundry and how the sausage is made.
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