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Seems like the dataset behind this article is for founders who have built businesses with $5K MRR and above. $60K revenue (and $20K profit @ 33% margin) is a f

Seems like the dataset behind this article is for founders who have built businesses with $5K MRR and above. $60K revenue (and $20K profit @ 33% margin) is a fairly low bar, so it is not surprising to see solo founders create 2.5X more businesses that clear this bar. My question after reading this article is, do these solo founders manage to grow their business as large as founding-teams? How many solo founder businesses cross the $50M revenue mark?

shiftpgdn 6y ago
On what planet is $240k/yr net profit for a boot strapped business a "low bar."
- jdminhbg 6y ago
  The $20k profit number was already multiplied by 12, it's not the monthly number.
- fouc 6y ago
  A developer working as a contractor and charging his clients a fairly reasonable rate of $120/hr could make that.
  - shiftpgdn 6y ago
    If you have ever contracted at any length you would know that $120/hr is hard earned and usually has not insignificant time on the back end in so far as negotiating the deal, keeping it going, etc.
    - jlokier 6y ago
      Here on HN I've occasionally seen people talk about $150/hr as a "low" contracting rate. And others talk about how they could not achieve that in their wildest dreams, and consider $80/hr "good". I was recently contacted about a contract proposal, in the USA, and they were offering $50/hr for some quite advanced cryptography work for a BigCorp end customer. I turned it down but it's good to get an idea of the market rate. Rate expectation seems to vary a great deal depending on which geography and network-bubble people are in.
  - bavell 6y ago
    > ...fairly reasonable rate of $120/hr Hahaha, I wish I could tell my clients that's a fairly reasonable rate! The only situation where that's fairly reasonable is when you're contracting with MegaCorp Inc...
deleted 6y ago
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threeseed 6y ago
It would be good to correlate that question with "what percentage of solo founders successfully raise". Because that would affect how many cross the $50M revenue mark as well. As a solo founder I've been told many times by VCs that they will invest in solo founders but then when you look at their portfolio it tells a misleading story. Most of their solo founders are previous founders or rockstars e.g. someone like Justin Kan.
- noychery 6y ago
  Author of the article here. Agreed with your point. I personally advocate for getting a hands-on advisor (https://www.growthclub.online/post/advice-for-solo-founders https://www.growthclub.online/post/advice-for-solo-founders) and at least for us in GrowthClub it helped to raise funding from 2 angels. Not yet sure about VCs.
jasonkester 6y ago
Ah, but $50M/year isn't the goal of a single player business. It's more like $200k/year, from a few hours effort per week. That's a lot more achievable. 10X your revenues, then automate everything so that it ticks along in the background with hardly any input. It gets very good after a while.

shiftpgdn 6y ago

On what planet is $240k/yr net profit for a boot strapped business a "low bar."

jdminhbg 6y ago
The $20k profit number was already multiplied by 12, it's not the monthly number.
fouc 6y ago
A developer working as a contractor and charging his clients a fairly reasonable rate of $120/hr could make that.
- shiftpgdn 6y ago
  If you have ever contracted at any length you would know that $120/hr is hard earned and usually has not insignificant time on the back end in so far as negotiating the deal, keeping it going, etc.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    Here on HN I've occasionally seen people talk about $150/hr as a "low" contracting rate. And others talk about how they could not achieve that in their wildest dreams, and consider $80/hr "good". I was recently contacted about a contract proposal, in the USA, and they were offering $50/hr for some quite advanced cryptography work for a BigCorp end customer. I turned it down but it's good to get an idea of the market rate. Rate expectation seems to vary a great deal depending on which geography and network-bubble people are in.
- bavell 6y ago
  > ...fairly reasonable rate of $120/hr Hahaha, I wish I could tell my clients that's a fairly reasonable rate! The only situation where that's fairly reasonable is when you're contracting with MegaCorp Inc...

deleted 6y ago

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threeseed 6y ago

It would be good to correlate that question with "what percentage of solo founders successfully raise". Because that would affect how many cross the $50M revenue mark as well. As a solo founder I've been told many times by VCs that they will invest in solo founders but then when you look at their portfolio it tells a misleading story. Most of their solo founders are previous founders or rockstars e.g. someone like Justin Kan.

noychery 6y ago
Author of the article here. Agreed with your point. I personally advocate for getting a hands-on advisor (https://www.growthclub.online/post/advice-for-solo-founders https://www.growthclub.online/post/advice-for-solo-founders) and at least for us in GrowthClub it helped to raise funding from 2 angels. Not yet sure about VCs.

jasonkester 6y ago

Ah, but $50M/year isn't the goal of a single player business. It's more like $200k/year, from a few hours effort per week. That's a lot more achievable. 10X your revenues, then automate everything so that it ticks along in the background with hardly any input. It gets very good after a while.