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We always have been open about our metrics as we are building a company based on trust. This time we went a step further and did break down our revenue and cost

We always have been open about our metrics as we are building a company based on trust. This time we went a step further and did break down our revenue and costs. We did go through all our transaction to build the chart you see with the last 4 months. We divided the costs up by banking (Stripe), hosting, services and freelancers. If there are any numbers missing, please let us know. We would love to add more data points that interest you. The open page has a Twitter thread combined with more details: https://twitter.com/AdriaanvRossum/status/1225528125620133889 https://twitter.com/AdriaanvRossum/status/122552812562013388...

balls187 7y ago
A discussion about freelances v labor would be interesting. Congrats on 4k MRR.
- AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
  Good point. I also didn't include my own fee. I guess profit is kind of what I get at the moment. We are planning on sharing our profit with our freelancer when it hits a certain level.
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    Adriaan, I wanted to ask this last time you posted but forgot to ask. How did you sort out the business side? Did you start straight out as an LLC (BV), or are you working in a freelance structure? I have a side project but I'm hesitant to release it because I'm not in a BV. Doing a BV means losing some really nice tax benefits that I'd rather not lose.
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  Labour in NL is extremely high risk. You can be on the line for paying a salary for two years if someone is ill. No matter the cause of the illness or the length of service (yes, one day of service is enough). Freelancers cost more up front however they don't have that risk. Also, the actual freelancers in general come from the top 10% of developers, so they're usually better.
Avtomat_K 7y ago
How do you earn so much money? I didn't think that starting a startup brought you so much money. Of course, getting clients is not an easy task, but at the same time, I see that they are the businesses that attract more customers.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- IshKebab 7y ago
  Get to the front page of HN I guess?
- Topgamer7 7y ago
  He only has 322 customers. Tech generally has good profit margins. The cost of hosting a server is cheap, and can usually accommodate up to millions of requests a second. One of the risks of starting a start up is there is no demand for your service (among a million other factors for success).
  - manigandham 7y ago
    You may have misstated this as commodity hardware is very capable these days but "millions of requests a second" is never cheap.
    - Avtomat_K 7y ago
      Hardware purchase is very expensive, but web hosting does not usually reach very high prices.
- dinkleberg 7y ago
  Since when is $4k MRR a lot of money? They are off to a great start, but that is far from making it.
  - michaelbuckbee 7y ago
    Agreed, and given available data from Baremetrics, that's actually quite a bit above average: https://baremetrics.com/blog/how-fast-saas-companies-hit-arr-milestones https://baremetrics.com/blog/how-fast-saas-companies-hit-arr... On average it takes a company a year(ish) to hit $4kMRR. EDIT: I mistakenly thought they launched on Oct 2019, but a comment further down puts launch at Dec 2018. Which means they're doing well but not spectacularly...which means they maybe should raise prices.
misiti3780 7y ago
when did you launch ?
- AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
  December 19, 2018 Relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024277
  - misiti3780 7y ago
    nice, congrats!
mritchie712 7y ago
What are the top 3 reasons people buy this? You push the privacy angle pretty hard, but that doesn't seem like enough for people to whip out their card (even at the reasonable price). My guess is a lot of people are just overwhelmed when they look at Google Analytics and end up going with you for simplicity. Also, where is server side analytics on your roadmap?
- AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
  - Simplicity - Privacy friendliness - Features (like bypassing ad-blockers [1], see which tweets got traffic [2], events, ...) We have customers like banks and governments who really care about the privacy part. Most of our customers use our tool because it has a very simple interface. One thing that also plays a big role is the likability of the brand. People seem to like it and are willing to pay money for its mission. We even had customers that didn't use our tool but where actively keeping the subscription active. PS: Server side tracking is already possible [3]. [1] https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/bypass-ad-blockers https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/bypass-ad-blockers [2] https://simpleanalytics.com/simpleanalytics.com/referrers/twitter https://simpleanalytics.com/simpleanalytics.com/referrers/tw... [3] https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/server-side-tracking https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/server-side-tracking
  - ronyfadel 7y ago
    Google Analytics doesn't report visits for users that have ad-blockers on, right? I own a website with about 50k pageviews a month. This could mean that actual viewership could be -much- higher? It's insane that GA doesn't offer a server-side solution like SimpleAnalytics does.
    - n1c 7y ago
      They don't have a CNAME style option; but it's possible to interact with their API: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/devguide https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...
    - 7y ago

balls187 7y ago

A discussion about freelances v labor would be interesting. Congrats on 4k MRR.

AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
Good point. I also didn't include my own fee. I guess profit is kind of what I get at the moment. We are planning on sharing our profit with our freelancer when it hits a certain level.
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  Adriaan, I wanted to ask this last time you posted but forgot to ask. How did you sort out the business side? Did you start straight out as an LLC (BV), or are you working in a freelance structure? I have a side project but I'm hesitant to release it because I'm not in a BV. Doing a BV means losing some really nice tax benefits that I'd rather not lose.
radicalbyte 7y ago
Labour in NL is extremely high risk. You can be on the line for paying a salary for two years if someone is ill. No matter the cause of the illness or the length of service (yes, one day of service is enough). Freelancers cost more up front however they don't have that risk. Also, the actual freelancers in general come from the top 10% of developers, so they're usually better.

Avtomat_K 7y ago

How do you earn so much money? I didn't think that starting a startup brought you so much money. Of course, getting clients is not an easy task, but at the same time, I see that they are the businesses that attract more customers.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
IshKebab 7y ago
Get to the front page of HN I guess?
Topgamer7 7y ago
He only has 322 customers. Tech generally has good profit margins. The cost of hosting a server is cheap, and can usually accommodate up to millions of requests a second. One of the risks of starting a start up is there is no demand for your service (among a million other factors for success).
- manigandham 7y ago
  You may have misstated this as commodity hardware is very capable these days but "millions of requests a second" is never cheap.
  - Avtomat_K 7y ago
    Hardware purchase is very expensive, but web hosting does not usually reach very high prices.
dinkleberg 7y ago
Since when is $4k MRR a lot of money? They are off to a great start, but that is far from making it.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  Agreed, and given available data from Baremetrics, that's actually quite a bit above average: https://baremetrics.com/blog/how-fast-saas-companies-hit-arr-milestones https://baremetrics.com/blog/how-fast-saas-companies-hit-arr... On average it takes a company a year(ish) to hit $4kMRR. EDIT: I mistakenly thought they launched on Oct 2019, but a comment further down puts launch at Dec 2018. Which means they're doing well but not spectacularly...which means they maybe should raise prices.

misiti3780 7y ago

when did you launch ?

AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
December 19, 2018 Relevant thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18024277
- misiti3780 7y ago
  nice, congrats!

mritchie712 7y ago

What are the top 3 reasons people buy this? You push the privacy angle pretty hard, but that doesn't seem like enough for people to whip out their card (even at the reasonable price). My guess is a lot of people are just overwhelmed when they look at Google Analytics and end up going with you for simplicity. Also, where is server side analytics on your roadmap?

AdriaanvRossum 7y ago
- Simplicity - Privacy friendliness - Features (like bypassing ad-blockers [1], see which tweets got traffic [2], events, ...) We have customers like banks and governments who really care about the privacy part. Most of our customers use our tool because it has a very simple interface. One thing that also plays a big role is the likability of the brand. People seem to like it and are willing to pay money for its mission. We even had customers that didn't use our tool but where actively keeping the subscription active. PS: Server side tracking is already possible [3]. [1] https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/bypass-ad-blockers https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/bypass-ad-blockers [2] https://simpleanalytics.com/simpleanalytics.com/referrers/twitter https://simpleanalytics.com/simpleanalytics.com/referrers/tw... [3] https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/server-side-tracking https://docs.simpleanalytics.com/server-side-tracking
- ronyfadel 7y ago
  Google Analytics doesn't report visits for users that have ad-blockers on, right? I own a website with about 50k pageviews a month. This could mean that actual viewership could be -much- higher? It's insane that GA doesn't offer a server-side solution like SimpleAnalytics does.
  - n1c 7y ago
    They don't have a CNAME style option; but it's possible to interact with their API: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/devguide https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection...
  - 7y ago