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Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

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Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#71

Post by qazqazqaz »

log_n wrote: post #59
qazqazqaz wrote: post #9

Congrats, thats some impressive growth in a short time. If you want to know what not to do, I'm happy to chat, email in my profile. I've made almost every possible mistake in the last 20 years ;-) Despite all the mistakes my current company is a couple of stages past the 250k ARR and I'm on the right track. In the end most advice in this situation is not rocket science, like for example: - reserve time to work on you…

I'm probably not understanding something. How is $250k ARR enough to build a team with? I would think you would need to be a magnitude higher at least to support a team off of that, especially if you are bootstrapped and have no cash reserves.

I agree that $250k ARR is not an revenue level to build a team around. But $250k ARR in 10 months, makes it very likely that it will be far over $500k in another year.

This means that the next 12 months one of the priorities will be building a stable team to support the growing customer base. Depending on the vision and the pace they widh to grow, this can be focussed on more sales, more engineering, more support, etc.

Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#73

Post by Hallucinaut »

leesalminen wrote: post #2

First off, congratulations. This is quite the accomplishment for anyone of any age. I started a niche B2B SaaS company with a co-founder when I was 23 (www.gingrapp.com). We sold it off when I was 27 and I stuck around for 2 years after acquisition. By the time I left there were 30+ employees and 8-digit ARR. I’m currently 30, married with a toddler and semi-retired. The last 10 years of my life have been absolutely…

Wow, 8-digit ARR from that niche is pretty amazing to me. The power of specialisation I suppose, but it does make me question what the "right" size of market to go after is to not spend a life chasing the dragon.

Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#74

Post by jwr »

snerual wrote: post #25
jwr wrote: post #4

As a bootstrapped SaaS founder myself: congratulations! This is an unbelievable growth rate for a bootstrapped SaaS. It usually takes many years to reach these numbers. Very happy to see people build sustainable businesses this way — venture funding is not the only way to go! I'd be very interested to learn more, things like: is it a B2B or B2C SaaS? What is your ARPU and LTV, are you spending on marketing, and if so…

Thanks, I had a lot of discussion with my founder about funding. Until now, I'm happy we did it bootstrap. To answer your questions: Model: B2B, mostly public educational institutes with 10k+ students. ARPU: would be dumb to shared, but just under the EU tender limit, so sales cycles are reduced to minimum. LTV: That's a hard one when you sell yearly contracts and less than 10months old. But from what we see, schools…

Well now I am even more impressed, because I think I managed to sell to two or three universities in the EU, and even there I'm effectively losing money because of all the hoops one has to jump through.

Again, congratulations, I'm really happy for you and wish you all the best.

Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#75

Post by rwalling »

MicroConf is the longest running community for bootstrapped and mostly bootstrapped founders. Also check out the sister podcast, Startups for the Rest of Us.

We started both of them a decade ago to connect folks in your situation to one another (as a multi-time bootstrapped SaaS founder myself).

Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#78

Post by aarbor989 »

RicoElectrico wrote: post #61
nugget wrote: post #10

You're already in one of the best communities there is: Hacker News. Don't underestimate what you can learn just by carefully reading the threads here. I went from "idea in my dorm room" to interviewing and hiring executives in their 40s and 50s within 24 months. The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than the…

> The best lesson I learned is that there are way fewer "rules" than you think, and smart, disciplined, focused entrepreneurs can accomplish way more than they assume. Isn't it like this? * A great idea can succeed despite mediocre execution * A mediocre idea can succeed if the execution is great * A bad idea can succeed (for a while) if you're a con artist (WeWork, Solar Roadways etc.)

Curious as to why you think WeWork is a bad idea?

Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#79

Post by nocobot »

ddoice wrote: post #66
MH15 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-cheating software is a fundamentally flawed approach. As remote education becomes more common educators should leave the concept of an "exam" behind and embrace project-based and open book curriculum.

Totally agree, and this kind of solutions only blocks the laptop but the students can use their smartphones to search for the answers.

I feel like the reason there is a demand for applications like this is not to prevent all cheating but to enable the school / Uni to claim that anti cheating measures where used for online testing.

I think the product is really smart.

Re: Tell HN: 19yo, bootstrapped SaaS, 250k ARR after 10 months

#80

Post by Bakary »

leesalminen wrote: post #2

First off, congratulations. This is quite the accomplishment for anyone of any age. I started a niche B2B SaaS company with a co-founder when I was 23 (www.gingrapp.com). We sold it off when I was 27 and I stuck around for 2 years after acquisition. By the time I left there were 30+ employees and 8-digit ARR. I’m currently 30, married with a toddler and semi-retired. The last 10 years of my life have been absolutely…

>A frequent refrain I encountered when trying to talk with friends/family was that I had “first-world” problems that weren’t worth talking about. Ugh.

Isn't this somewhat true from their perspective? They have just as much difficulty relating the other way

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