How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup • Hacker News Board

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#61

Post by motoxpro » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 9:36 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #58

skrebbel wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite. I'm 37, a tech startup founder. I'm wary of ageism and I've long believed that not being ageist would allow us to hire smarter than competitors. However: - The amount of programmers grows exponentially. I've seen stats claiming it doubles every 5 years. - This means that at any time, 50% of the available workforce has - It also means there are simply way more programmers under 40 than over. If you randomly…

>> The amount of programmers grows exponentially. I've seen stats claiming it doubles every 5 years. The worst part about this is that the world doesn't need so many developers. It also doesn't need so many marketers and data scientists either. The jobs are being created artificially as part of the Federal Reserve Bank's job creation mandate and financed by fiat money printing. The economy of the past decade is a com…

Wow...

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#62

Post by exolymph » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 9:37 PM UTC

welder wrote: post #16

The key learning: Get your product used by the React.js team for hyper growth.

The key learning: People will totally ignore everything you did to prep and find luck, as long as there's an element of luck they can use to dismiss your hard work.

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#63

Post by welder » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 9:52 PM UTC

exolymph wrote: post #62

welder wrote: post #16

The key learning: Get your product used by the React.js team for hyper growth.

The key learning: People will totally ignore everything you did to prep and find luck, as long as there's an element of luck they can use to dismiss your hard work.

Sorry if it was ambiguous, but I didn't mean luck was involved more that marketing and getting eyeballs is super important.

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#64

Post by seattletech » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:01 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #59

It never made sense to me why these kinds of 'marketing', 'feedback gathering', 'a/b testing', 'email campaign management' and 'project management' tools seem to always make so much money when clearly they add no value at all to the businesses who use them or their customers. They just keep employees busy and create more jobs. I blame the Federal Reserve Bank's money printing. One of the Fed's 2 mandates is 'job crea…

My new disruptive startup will TEAR DOWN THOSE WALLS for the wall-less experience

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#65

Post by highfrequency » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

Congratulations, and great writeup! Compared to other SaaS startups you have seen that eventually fizzled out, what would you guess are the main meta reasons you guys succeeded? In particular, how much value would you attribute to just not giving up at any point? Were there any low morale points on the journey?

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#66

Post by itsmefaz » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:05 PM UTC

For some reason, I find the writing and decisions to be mature. Shouldn't the early stage product development be messy and full of doubts? I understand the post doesn't capture everything, but it feels the decisions the founders took most of the time had positive outcome. Is this luck or value of product-market fit?

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#67

Post by biztos » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #30

a13n wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks so much for being a customer! And yeah, it always feels bad to write that "we got lucky", as it isn't really that repeatable/helpful. But it's true.

Fun story: The lead artist/dancer of https://www.skyfirearts.com/ had had that dream for years, and that "first lucky break" came when (8-9 years ago) he was getting coffee and the guy behind him in line was the guy for Tesla Coils in the US, who then helped Skyfire get up and running. AFAICT, what's repeatable / helpful is a bit more nuance about "how to make luck": 1) Know what you want so you can recognize it when…

Not advice exactly, but I have a few friends who've had lucky breaks like that, and I'm pretty sure it came down to: be interesting, confident, and friendly. Plus the things you mentioned.

When they randomly met people who could open doors for them, they just seemed like interesting people to open doors for, and who wouldn't waste the opportunity nor abuse it.

Anyway that's my take, but I'm still struggling with #1 at 50, so I might be over-thinking it.

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#68

Post by a13n » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

itsmefaz wrote: post #66

For some reason, I find the writing and decisions to be mature. Shouldn't the early stage product development be messy and full of doubts? I understand the post doesn't capture everything, but it feels the decisions the founders took most of the time had positive outcome. Is this luck or value of product-market fit?

Early-stage definitely was filled with messiness and doubts. We had no idea we were going to get to $1m ARR. When we started we had no idea how to price a SaaS product or make a landing page.

There's that quote, "hindsight is 20/20", meaning it's easier to understand what went well/poorly when looking back. It's easy for us to reflect on what went well, and share just that.

Doesn't mean it was easy/obvious in the moment, but hopefully our post helps others with their journey!

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#69

Post by biztos » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

davidedicillo wrote: post #40

ponker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, how do you “bootstrap” a team of 9 at $1m ARR? I thought bootstrapping means your revenues cover your costs.

The post articulates this pretty well. > For us, ramen profitability was at about $50k/yr. Andrew and I are a couple, so our living expenses are cheaper (per person). We were also digital nomads, and Airbnbs in Spain are a lot cheaper than rent in San Francisco.

If you're actually living in Spain, and you manage to get that to $50k net (maybe not so hard if you're the only two "employees" and you're doing standard "digital nomad" tax hacks) then it's a pretty good income, or at least you probably know couples who make less.

Still I'm sure it takes dedication when you could just as easily make FAANG money.

Re: How we built a $1M ARR SaaS startup

#70

Post by ponker » Mon, Oct 05, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

bkruse wrote: post #60

ponker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is “comment selling”?

Without doing the sales pitch, it's using comments as the medium for indicating purchase intent instead of clicking on a link "Oh, you like this item you see on your facebook feed? Comment sold and your size to order it"

Ah. Makes a lot of sense. Gets the person to a lower friction commitment point where they feel like they’re going back on their word if they abandon at that point. And you can harass them with PMs to follow up lol.