3 ms·

I bootstrapped to 10s of Ms of ARR over 10 years. Some things I learned the hard way: - Any idiot can cut costs, but spending money well is an art. It is wort

I bootstrapped to 10s of Ms of ARR over 10 years. Some things I learned the hard way: - Any idiot can cut costs, but spending money well is an art. It is worth getting good at, and that requires practice and the willingness to waste money sometimes. That’s a better skill to learn than how to lower expenses (though you should learn both) - it’s much more fun to grow your way out of a cash crunch than it is to cut your way out. - Related: most things you spend money on are a waste. - We didn’t hire anyone in our first 2 years. I didn’t hire another developer in our first 3. We probably could have pushed both those numbers a bit further if we were more disciplined with our own time. We were ramen profitable after 18 months, for context. *Don’t hire anyone until you have product market fit!* - Don’t feel bad about co founders working free. The point is that in 5+ years time you’re all working for a very very good rate. - Related: make sure you actually are paying yourselves really well in 5 years time, and/or are taking big lifestyle benefits. Otherwise what’s the point? - You might get more tailored advice if you share what your venture does.

jessehorne 4y ago
Thanks for the advice. Didn't want to seem like I was advertising so I didn't go into detail of what I was doing but I think you're right, I can at least talk about the industry. It's a tech recruiting agency that's focused on quality over quantity, leveraging modern (and interesting, fun and new methods) to get the right sort of talent and to truly qualify them based on real skills and help train them if they're not ready. Being an engineer in this industry for over 8 years professionally, it is painfully obvious what's wrong with tech recruiting these days and we're working on the solution(s). One way we're saving money is by targeting our marketing and utilizing methods to find engineers that are more appealing to the engineers themselves. One way we're not planning to save money is on the investment we make into candidates. The idea is, if an engineer makes it to a certain level with us, their growth is our growth. I see that as an investment and not a loss.

jessehorne 4y ago

Thanks for the advice. Didn't want to seem like I was advertising so I didn't go into detail of what I was doing but I think you're right, I can at least talk about the industry. It's a tech recruiting agency that's focused on quality over quantity, leveraging modern (and interesting, fun and new methods) to get the right sort of talent and to truly qualify them based on real skills and help train them if they're not ready. Being an engineer in this industry for over 8 years professionally, it is painfully obvious what's wrong with tech recruiting these days and we're working on the solution(s). One way we're saving money is by targeting our marketing and utilizing methods to find engineers that are more appealing to the engineers themselves. One way we're not planning to save money is on the investment we make into candidates. The idea is, if an engineer makes it to a certain level with us, their growth is our growth. I see that as an investment and not a loss.