4 ms·

Funny thing is I have known about some of these companies since about a few years. I distinctly remember seeing Ghost's revenue (around $40K) and thinking, "umm

Funny thing is I have known about some of these companies since about a few years. I distinctly remember seeing Ghost's revenue (around $40K) and thinking, "umm.. that doesn't seem much to go around five people."; watching Hubstaff numbers (which was ~$80K/month, I believe), and saying to myself, "that's a very niche software. Would it ever go to make revenue that justifies expenses of a team?" (I think the CEO mentioned that he had taken zero salary since starting the company) I am amazed how far they have come. So, a lesson learned well: If you're starting a company, you're fighting a long, hard battle against pessimists like me.

johnonolan 8y ago
Can confirm
ttul 8y ago
In SaaS, the road can be especially long... Bootstrapped SaaS north of $1M a month is damn impressive.
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  I'm curious how it breaks out to lower tiers. How impressive is $20,000/month, $100,000/month etc. and what percentage of SaaS get there, how long it takes, etc. Is there anywhere that has a nice table of that data for tech SaaS? That's the kind of info that would be quite fun and informative to look at.
  - WA 8y ago
    Does it really matter? There are a thousand reasons why businesses fail. Also, $20,000/month can be quite impressive, if you earn this for yourself and live somewhere with low costs of living. Seeing those numbers is just entertainment. If you hit your number, you figure that it doesn’t matter if it’s impressive for others.
  - puranjay 8y ago
    My side project just broke $1k/month and I already count that as a success. My success metric is "freedom". If this side project could net me $3k/month, it would net me a lot of "freedom points" I reckon everyone has a different metric for success
    - brobdingnagians 8y ago
      Thank you, that's pretty cool
jv22222 8y ago
Post about that: https://baremetrics.com/blog/long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death https://baremetrics.com/blog/long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death
- karussell 8y ago
  The title, especially the "of death", is a bit misleading like you wrote at the end. Good read though :)
patio11 8y ago
Don't want to personalize this but, since we're mutually reflecting on the sociology of talking about running a company and dealing with external perceptions: the specific names of the pessimists may change but there is absolutely no level of success at which folks will stop saying "Pfft, that's not a real business." I think the takeaway for founders is being prepared for this and learning to not weight external pessimism all that highly, particularly not of the low-brow dismissal variety (what are the general odds that someone who has known about a business for 180 seconds has found the fatal flaw). For the broader community, I think the takeaway is intentionally being almost unreasonably supportive of people building things.
- tway2888888 8y ago
  >I think the takeaway is intentionally being almost unreasonably supportive of people building things Hate to break it to you, but "building things" doesn't make you special; solving hard problems does. Not sure why the latest data-selling photo app needs "unreasonable support".
- hangonhn 8y ago
  I had a friend who said the same thing about Google when they first IPOed. His suggestion was that they should take their new cash and just go buy a real business so they're real (specifically suggested AOL Time Warner). This was a trader at one of the world's biggest hedge funds. He went on to have a very successful career in finance nonetheless. It's hard to make predictions about things we don't understand. A lot of our expertise isn't transferable to other domains and we sometimes overestimate the generalizability of our expertise. Doubters and cheerleaders are both likely to be wrong and there is also so much you can't predict about the boarder environment businesses must operate in. Sometimes even the best of us fail and the most incompetent of us get lucky once in a while.
- andy_adams 8y ago
  As a pessimist for the first 30 years of my life, I've finally realized just how little utility there is in being negative. On the flip side, being positive: 1. Helps you get more done 2. Helps other people get more done 3. Makes you more friends
YayamiOmate 8y ago
If one had only pessimists as enemies business would be easier! =]
kohanz 8y ago
> If you're starting a company, you're fighting a long, hard battle against pessimists like me. If you're a bootstrapped founder, but also a human, one of those pessimists will have your own voice, with a permanent address in your head.

johnonolan 8y ago

Can confirm

ttul 8y ago

In SaaS, the road can be especially long... Bootstrapped SaaS north of $1M a month is damn impressive.

brobdingnagians 8y ago
I'm curious how it breaks out to lower tiers. How impressive is $20,000/month, $100,000/month etc. and what percentage of SaaS get there, how long it takes, etc. Is there anywhere that has a nice table of that data for tech SaaS? That's the kind of info that would be quite fun and informative to look at.
- WA 8y ago
  Does it really matter? There are a thousand reasons why businesses fail. Also, $20,000/month can be quite impressive, if you earn this for yourself and live somewhere with low costs of living. Seeing those numbers is just entertainment. If you hit your number, you figure that it doesn’t matter if it’s impressive for others.
- puranjay 8y ago
  My side project just broke $1k/month and I already count that as a success. My success metric is "freedom". If this side project could net me $3k/month, it would net me a lot of "freedom points" I reckon everyone has a different metric for success
  - brobdingnagians 8y ago
    Thank you, that's pretty cool

jv22222 8y ago

Post about that: https://baremetrics.com/blog/long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death https://baremetrics.com/blog/long-slow-saas-ramp-of-death

karussell 8y ago
The title, especially the "of death", is a bit misleading like you wrote at the end. Good read though :)

patio11 8y ago

Don't want to personalize this but, since we're mutually reflecting on the sociology of talking about running a company and dealing with external perceptions: the specific names of the pessimists may change but there is absolutely no level of success at which folks will stop saying "Pfft, that's not a real business." I think the takeaway for founders is being prepared for this and learning to not weight external pessimism all that highly, particularly not of the low-brow dismissal variety (what are the general odds that someone who has known about a business for 180 seconds has found the fatal flaw). For the broader community, I think the takeaway is intentionally being almost unreasonably supportive of people building things.

tway2888888 8y ago
>I think the takeaway is intentionally being almost unreasonably supportive of people building things Hate to break it to you, but "building things" doesn't make you special; solving hard problems does. Not sure why the latest data-selling photo app needs "unreasonable support".
hangonhn 8y ago
I had a friend who said the same thing about Google when they first IPOed. His suggestion was that they should take their new cash and just go buy a real business so they're real (specifically suggested AOL Time Warner). This was a trader at one of the world's biggest hedge funds. He went on to have a very successful career in finance nonetheless. It's hard to make predictions about things we don't understand. A lot of our expertise isn't transferable to other domains and we sometimes overestimate the generalizability of our expertise. Doubters and cheerleaders are both likely to be wrong and there is also so much you can't predict about the boarder environment businesses must operate in. Sometimes even the best of us fail and the most incompetent of us get lucky once in a while.
andy_adams 8y ago
As a pessimist for the first 30 years of my life, I've finally realized just how little utility there is in being negative. On the flip side, being positive: 1. Helps you get more done 2. Helps other people get more done 3. Makes you more friends

YayamiOmate 8y ago

If one had only pessimists as enemies business would be easier! =]

kohanz 8y ago

> If you're starting a company, you're fighting a long, hard battle against pessimists like me. If you're a bootstrapped founder, but also a human, one of those pessimists will have your own voice, with a permanent address in your head.