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?
There's a quote, "Do nothing, and nothing happens", and it's super true in the early days, before you hire people. If you don't work, your company makes literally no progress whatsoever. This is motivating. Like, everything relies on you, so show up and get it done!
I think a lot of VC-backed companies only get 1-2 years of seed money to try their idea. It took us 1.5 years to make our first dollar, and another year after that to get to profitability. If we were venture backed, we might not have had enough traction to raise our next round, and would have had to call it there.
Similarly, I don't love the "lean startup" approach of trying a bunch of stuff quickly. If you pick a good starting point (big market, competitive differentiators, etc.), and spend years at it, you're bound to have some success. Just due to the sheer fact that you're willing to commit more of your lifetime to solving that problem than anyone else is. That's what worked for us at least.