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This is true. I've seen a few small SaaS that should have dreamed bigger who had the idea first. I had a stripe dashboard before baremetrics but totally underes

by saluki 4y ago

This is true. I've seen a few small SaaS that should have dreamed bigger who had the idea first. I had a stripe dashboard before baremetrics but totally underestimated the size of the market. A friend had a tool like Buffer that was earlier and got some traction and had a small exit but he didn't dream what he had could scale like buffer did. Granted could have requires lots and lots of work. But neither of us considered being able to even try to get to that scale. So dream big or at least take a more serious look at what scale your 'hustle' could reach.

altdataseller 4y ago
Some numbers for perspective: Baremetrics spent almost 8-10 years working on their product for a $4 million exit. They didn't raise a lot of VC capital, so their founder got a very good payday b/c he wasn't diluted that much. Buffer still has not exit, to my knowledge and has had 2+ consecutive years of falling revenue. Their list of acquirers is getting shorter and shorter, and their founders have not cashed out yet(excluding the 1 who got ~$1 million or so after raising from VC - very distasteful IMO). Buffer and Moz are the 2 companies that are examples of companies that aimed too high, raised too much money, and made a success less likely for the founders. So, sometimes aiming high isn't that good if it means raising capital, and where a few $million exit won't be a huge success since you're getting diluted.
- saluki 4y ago
  That's true, good points. Yeah, it's a nice balance finding the sweet spot. I did see the article about buffer's revenue peaking and has continued falling.
- treis 4y ago
  >Some numbers for perspective: Baremetrics spent almost 8-10 years working on their product for a $4 million exit. They didn't raise a lot of VC capital, so their founder got a very good payday b/c he wasn't diluted that much. His investors walked away from their $800k invested so that was helpful. Even still, netting 3.7 million sounds great but it's somewhat misleading. For comparison, if you got a job today for 250k, got 5% raises, and invested all your money at 5% returns you'd end up with 3.5 million after 7 years. That's kind of where I always end up w/ bootstrap SAAS ideas. My salary as a developer always sounds like a lot but it really sounds like a lot when you start talking about charging customers to match it. When you add in time value of money and risk the path to a successful bootstrap SAAS is a pretty narrow one.
  - altdataseller 4y ago
    1) A 250K job is not readily available for everyone, let alone 350K if you're taking into account annual raises for 7 years. Sure, if you're fortunate/diligent enough, but not everyone can get into FAANG, or have what it takes to master those interview questions (or want to). I also believe the founder of Baremetrics did not have a developer background. Even if you are able to make that much in your job, the math starts to change dramatically when you have a bootstrapped company, where you can pay yourself half your regular salary for years before you decide to sell the company. 2) Yes, investors walking away from 800K is a good valid point. If we want to talk about true bootstrapped successes, BuzzSumo and Backlinko are better examples. But yes, the path to a successful bootstrapped SaaS is a narrow one - it's always been a narrow one. But even with a narrow path, it's still larger than the path to a successful funded SaaS. Both have low probabilities of success, but one is more of a moonshot than the other, IMO.

by saluki 4y ago

altdataseller 4y ago

Some numbers for perspective: Baremetrics spent almost 8-10 years working on their product for a $4 million exit. They didn't raise a lot of VC capital, so their founder got a very good payday b/c he wasn't diluted that much. Buffer still has not exit, to my knowledge and has had 2+ consecutive years of falling revenue. Their list of acquirers is getting shorter and shorter, and their founders have not cashed out yet(excluding the 1 who got ~$1 million or so after raising from VC - very distasteful IMO). Buffer and Moz are the 2 companies that are examples of companies that aimed too high, raised too much money, and made a success less likely for the founders. So, sometimes aiming high isn't that good if it means raising capital, and where a few $million exit won't be a huge success since you're getting diluted.

saluki 4y ago
That's true, good points. Yeah, it's a nice balance finding the sweet spot. I did see the article about buffer's revenue peaking and has continued falling.
treis 4y ago
>Some numbers for perspective: Baremetrics spent almost 8-10 years working on their product for a $4 million exit. They didn't raise a lot of VC capital, so their founder got a very good payday b/c he wasn't diluted that much. His investors walked away from their $800k invested so that was helpful. Even still, netting 3.7 million sounds great but it's somewhat misleading. For comparison, if you got a job today for 250k, got 5% raises, and invested all your money at 5% returns you'd end up with 3.5 million after 7 years. That's kind of where I always end up w/ bootstrap SAAS ideas. My salary as a developer always sounds like a lot but it really sounds like a lot when you start talking about charging customers to match it. When you add in time value of money and risk the path to a successful bootstrap SAAS is a pretty narrow one.
- altdataseller 4y ago
  1) A 250K job is not readily available for everyone, let alone 350K if you're taking into account annual raises for 7 years. Sure, if you're fortunate/diligent enough, but not everyone can get into FAANG, or have what it takes to master those interview questions (or want to). I also believe the founder of Baremetrics did not have a developer background. Even if you are able to make that much in your job, the math starts to change dramatically when you have a bootstrapped company, where you can pay yourself half your regular salary for years before you decide to sell the company. 2) Yes, investors walking away from 800K is a good valid point. If we want to talk about true bootstrapped successes, BuzzSumo and Backlinko are better examples. But yes, the path to a successful bootstrapped SaaS is a narrow one - it's always been a narrow one. But even with a narrow path, it's still larger than the path to a successful funded SaaS. Both have low probabilities of success, but one is more of a moonshot than the other, IMO.