Personal milestone: 1Cr in rev as a bootstrapper
Team is less than 10 people still, slowly growing. Net profit could be higher, that's top priority to work on now. Total cash invested by founders was 15L over 3-4 years.
Yearly revenue :
2019 - less than 30k 20 - 1.5L (after pivot) 22 - 50L
Getting to the first lakh and then to 10 lakhs was probably the most challenging part.
We thought of shutting down multiple times, struggled through multiple fights between founders. Glad we didn't stop working and pulled through.
This is my 4th or 5th attempt at starting up. Except for 1, other attempts didn't even get to incorporation stage.
Would love to hear from other bootstrappers and their experience.
One interview, 1000+ job opportunities
Take a 10-min AI interview to qualify for numerous real jobs auto-matched to your profile 🔑
We’re at about $400K bootstrapped with a team of 2 (me included), started in 2019. Revenue almost doubled in last 18 months.
My personal observation is that if you’re going to bootstrap, you need to go after high margin, niche markets (unless you’re doing services) because you don’t have a lot of money for marketing.
Our main growth channel is affiliates and SEO. Growth will be slow so we just have to keep at it. Also, beware of VC-funded competitors.
How is the tax stuff like? Does it eat into majority of the revenue?
Not at all.
My co-founder is American and the company is registered in the US. As it’s bootstrapped, we can pull out most of the cash and here in India, I pay 15% on total income (paid 15% on ITR filing of 1.2 crore last FY)
2018 - 5 months into my first job, quit it, saved 2L rupees. Met my cofounder, bootstrapped by putting 2L rupees each. And then subsequently started making revenue without taking any takeaway salary except expenses (1000-5000 rupees monthly)
2021- touched revenue of $100,000 monthly, got funded then after but didnt really need external money anymore. Took it just to be safe.
2022- sold the company
SaaS is an amazing industry to bootstrap. Unit economics is positive. Revenue grew 100x but team grew 2.5x only (from 5 to 12)
Sold the company with only 10-15 team member. Everyone took an exit for their next phase in life.
Awesome progress 👏 ..what do you do?
Everything, including product management. But I'm mostly responsible for marketing, branding and communication.
Great . What does your org do?
Congratulations and good to see a positive news. I am also exploring few ideas but I need a tech co founder as I am a business development person. How can I search a like minded tech co founder?
This is the biggest challenge today imo. Engineers still have unaffordable salaries for early stage startups and rarely any competent tech folks will give up salary to take equity and ESOPs. Takes time to find the right person too.
I would say go for a good development agency that can build and maintain your MVP initially. Tech founder can join later once there's traction. Agencies would also charge lesser in comparison.
That's what we did, and are now looking for someone who can be at least a part time CTO and manage the agency along with other work like analytics and API integrations.
Thanks. It makes sense
Me - In over optimism, wasted 15L in 1 year. Went back to corporate job the next year.
Obviously hadn't thought through on tons of stuff while launching. Realized towards the end, lesson learnt, cut my losses and left.
Happens. But I'd say you'll never know everything before launch or even after. It's always a learning process and you have to be open minded and optimistic.
🫡 amazing stuff. Do share some gayaan on how to get first few clients and how to double down on an idea
Just ship an MVP and constantly iterate on user feedback. Double down when you see revenue flowing in, but do the market research first to understand how big the market is and can be.
What’s the name of the company ??
Can't share, prefer to stay anon for now
I also own a company which has 5 Crore revenue and also chartered plane which is not visible but I can’t share the name 😂😂
Can u share the domain in which ur startup operates? Can u also share how long it took u to get to this revenue (including the other 5 failed attempts). Also did u learn anything specific from the failures?
Social impact, b2b2c. 4 years to reach 1Cr. Other attempts didn't get to MVP stage. Most important learning was having good trustworthy co-founders who don't flake and are committed.
The last attempt before this we did incorporate but with sluggish and slow co founders who weren't aggressive enough and didn't align with our vision.