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"How we Bootstrapped Our SaaS Startup to Ramen Profitability" Or as they called it in the 80s: "How we Started a business"

boymeetsworld 9y ago
I'm dumb and wasn't alive in the 80's. Can someone explain this joke to me?
- jsjohnst 9y ago
  I'm not sure there was a "joke". Basically GP's saying that the marketing speak laden title is an artifact of our times. Really what does all those words mean that "we built a business" doesn't communicate?
- breckinloggins 9y ago
  The joke is that "start small and keep expenses low; focus on making enough money to live" was known in the past (and outside of the tech bubble) as simply "starting a business". The title is a bit buzzword-laden, and GP is calling that out.
  - boymeetsworld 9y ago
    That would make sense. Thank you!
  - batiudrami 9y ago
    I actually couldn't tell if the title was a joke or not.
- j45 9y ago
  Not much of a joke that I think.. For some VC's have a stereotype of looking down on ramen profitability because it gets in the way of convincing young people to burn / spitball / "innovate" a decade of their lives away their 20's swinging for low percentage 100x returns in exchange for burn out, etc... The alternative of say, 10x, can be very profitable and stable and enable just as much. Said differently.. For some, largely on the funded side, everyone's a statistic, and after generally "going hard", they inevitably "go home" because they're told there's no more money from investors, and not enough paying customers. On the self-funded / lean / boot-strapped / ramen profitable side, you get to earn your keep to stay in business so no one can tell you to go home except your customers who stop paying you.
fishtoaster 9y ago
Well, I mean, an article entitled "How we started a business" could involve how they raised money. Given that this is HackerNews, it's maybe even more likely than not. The term "bootstrapping" precludes that. And "business" could mean anything from a desktop app to a physical t-shirt factory to a copper-mining concern. "SaaS Startup" means something much more specific. And yes, they could have said "... to enough profitability to cover our living expenses," but "ramen profitable" seems more concise in a context (like HN) where the audience knows what it means. I'm all for calling out buzzwords, but each word here seems to do a decent job of communicating a lot more than "How we started a business."
- JamesNK 9y ago
  He isn't criticizing the title, it's just a hot take on how the nature of starting a business has changed.
  - vonnik 9y ago
    And he's wrong. The 80s was the era of cheap cash. A lot cheaper than now. And people have been getting their starts on VC for decades.
    - icedchai 9y ago
      For the average person, meaning someone getting a business loan or mortgage, this just isn't true. Take a look at historical bank rates. They're much cheaper now than the 80's.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        Correct. https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/historical-prime-rate.htm https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/historica... The 1980s may have been a time when some borrowers had easier time getting credit at all, but it wasn't a time of “cheap cash”.
andrewstuart 9y ago
My recollection of the 80's and 90's was that almost all businesses required a solid chunk of cash to start. The idea of bootstrapping is only valid in recent 1-2 decades because it is now possible to start businesses without a chunk of cash, thus "bootstrapping". I'm not convinced bootstrapping existing under another name in the 80s. For the pedants, I'm not saying it was impossible to start a business in the 80s and 90s without cash, just saying that such a path was rare enough to not have a common name such as "bootstrapping". In fact, prior to Amazon ec2, even Internet businesses required typically the cash to buy/house a server in a data centre which was often thousands of dollars, and even that was considered incredibly cheap for access to a global market compared to what it used to cost prior to the web.
- flukus 9y ago
  Plenty of business started out of a garage in the 80's and earlier, many of them are well known names today like apple. A lot of video game companies grew from bedroom coders. Software could be sold through direct mail order. In the 90's a lot of companies bootstrapped themselves (the term was in existence) by building access apps for businesses or building small bits of custom software for large local business. If anything it's probably harder to get started today, your competition is worldwide, not just local and customer expect more than a text based terminal app.
  - andrewstuart 9y ago
    Apple wasn't bootstrapped. It had alot of investment dollars.
- blattimwind 9y ago
  > In fact, prior to Amazon ec2, even Internet businesses required typically the cash to buy/house a server in a data centre which was often thousands of dollars You seem to imply that shared servers (shell or web) did not exist prior to AWS?
  - andrewstuart 9y ago

boymeetsworld 9y ago

I'm dumb and wasn't alive in the 80's. Can someone explain this joke to me?

jsjohnst 9y ago
I'm not sure there was a "joke". Basically GP's saying that the marketing speak laden title is an artifact of our times. Really what does all those words mean that "we built a business" doesn't communicate?
breckinloggins 9y ago
The joke is that "start small and keep expenses low; focus on making enough money to live" was known in the past (and outside of the tech bubble) as simply "starting a business". The title is a bit buzzword-laden, and GP is calling that out.
- boymeetsworld 9y ago
  That would make sense. Thank you!
- batiudrami 9y ago
  I actually couldn't tell if the title was a joke or not.
j45 9y ago
Not much of a joke that I think.. For some VC's have a stereotype of looking down on ramen profitability because it gets in the way of convincing young people to burn / spitball / "innovate" a decade of their lives away their 20's swinging for low percentage 100x returns in exchange for burn out, etc... The alternative of say, 10x, can be very profitable and stable and enable just as much. Said differently.. For some, largely on the funded side, everyone's a statistic, and after generally "going hard", they inevitably "go home" because they're told there's no more money from investors, and not enough paying customers. On the self-funded / lean / boot-strapped / ramen profitable side, you get to earn your keep to stay in business so no one can tell you to go home except your customers who stop paying you.

fishtoaster 9y ago

Well, I mean, an article entitled "How we started a business" could involve how they raised money. Given that this is HackerNews, it's maybe even more likely than not. The term "bootstrapping" precludes that. And "business" could mean anything from a desktop app to a physical t-shirt factory to a copper-mining concern. "SaaS Startup" means something much more specific. And yes, they could have said "... to enough profitability to cover our living expenses," but "ramen profitable" seems more concise in a context (like HN) where the audience knows what it means. I'm all for calling out buzzwords, but each word here seems to do a decent job of communicating a lot more than "How we started a business."

JamesNK 9y ago
He isn't criticizing the title, it's just a hot take on how the nature of starting a business has changed.
- vonnik 9y ago
  And he's wrong. The 80s was the era of cheap cash. A lot cheaper than now. And people have been getting their starts on VC for decades.
  - icedchai 9y ago
    For the average person, meaning someone getting a business loan or mortgage, this just isn't true. Take a look at historical bank rates. They're much cheaper now than the 80's.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      Correct. https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/historical-prime-rate.htm https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/historica... The 1980s may have been a time when some borrowers had easier time getting credit at all, but it wasn't a time of “cheap cash”.

andrewstuart 9y ago

My recollection of the 80's and 90's was that almost all businesses required a solid chunk of cash to start. The idea of bootstrapping is only valid in recent 1-2 decades because it is now possible to start businesses without a chunk of cash, thus "bootstrapping". I'm not convinced bootstrapping existing under another name in the 80s. For the pedants, I'm not saying it was impossible to start a business in the 80s and 90s without cash, just saying that such a path was rare enough to not have a common name such as "bootstrapping". In fact, prior to Amazon ec2, even Internet businesses required typically the cash to buy/house a server in a data centre which was often thousands of dollars, and even that was considered incredibly cheap for access to a global market compared to what it used to cost prior to the web.

flukus 9y ago
Plenty of business started out of a garage in the 80's and earlier, many of them are well known names today like apple. A lot of video game companies grew from bedroom coders. Software could be sold through direct mail order. In the 90's a lot of companies bootstrapped themselves (the term was in existence) by building access apps for businesses or building small bits of custom software for large local business. If anything it's probably harder to get started today, your competition is worldwide, not just local and customer expect more than a text based terminal app.
- andrewstuart 9y ago
  Apple wasn't bootstrapped. It had alot of investment dollars.
blattimwind 9y ago
> In fact, prior to Amazon ec2, even Internet businesses required typically the cash to buy/house a server in a data centre which was often thousands of dollars You seem to imply that shared servers (shell or web) did not exist prior to AWS?
- andrewstuart 9y ago