Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 28, 2018

The alternative is to work with an innovation institute to evaluate your technology, or hire a consultant. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue. If you need help at this stage, look for a local university teaching online courses on entrepreneurship , or how to build a business plan.

Incubator 236

Incubator Exit Strategy Institutional Investors Angel Investor 236

ReadWriteStart

JULY 12, 2023

Gesto decided to scale InvGate after bootstrapping for the past 14 years. Companies can increase their revenue potential and access new customer bases by expanding into new markets. Companies that hope to compete successfully in global markets must be ready to adapt their strategies to meet the unique demands of each market they enter.

United States 121

United States Management Mexico Artificial Inteligence 121

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 19, 2018

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 184

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 184

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 4, 2014

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Angel Investor 232

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

The question is further complicated when the new hire is getting a salary. Typically the salary is less than market with the balance given in the form of equity, but again how do you compute that when the stock is, today, of no value? &# Hard to know, but an important question for a bootstrap startup to answer!

Equity 276

Equity Salary Hiring Institutional Investors 276

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 15, 2013

The alternative is to work with an innovation institute to evaluate your technology, or hire a consultant. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. If you need help at this stage, look for a local university teaching online courses on entrepreneurship , or how to build a business plan.

Incubator 256

Incubator Entrepreneur Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 256

The Startup Magazine

OCTOBER 13, 2019

Yet, investors and analysts demand it. Whether a brand new bootstrapped startup or corporate giant, your altitude, sustainability, and traction has everything to do with your team. Often it is just far cheaper to buy it, than to spend all the time and money to try and find and lure and hire and train it.

Intellectual Property 102

Intellectual Property IP Acquisition Startup 102

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 13, 2016

For example, if you have a proven product, real revenue, a big potential market, and are ready to scale up the business, every investor will be interested. On the other hand, if you are a new entrepreneur, still in the idea stage, professional investors will only tell you to come back later when you have traction (customers and revenue).

Matching 120

Matching Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers 120

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2016

The alternative is to work with an innovation institute to evaluate your technology, or hire a consultant. This normally means more than 30 employees, and more than $1 million in revenue. If you need help at this stage, look for a local university teaching online courses on entrepreneurship , or how to build a business plan.

Incubator 120

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 120

Hearpreneur

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

As a bootstrapped company, fuelling your own growth can be challenging and comes with many lessons learned. Matt sees a huge opportunity to bring technology to SMBs that help them understand how to optimize their processes around demand generation to achieve better results from any of their marketing channels. Tell us your story.

Bootstrapping 72

Bootstrapping North America Lead Generation Demand 72

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 16, 2012

The alternative is to work with an innovation institute to evaluate your technology, or hire a consultant. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. If you need help at this stage, look for a local university teaching night courses on entrepreneurship , or how to build a business plan.

Incubator 237

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 237

Hearpreneur

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

As a bootstrapped company, fuelling your own growth can be challenging and comes with many lessons learned. Matt sees a huge opportunity to bring technology to SMBs that help them understand how to optimize their processes around demand generation to achieve better results from any of their marketing channels. Tell us your story.

Bootstrapping 62

Bootstrapping North America Lead Generation Demand 62

Up and Running

APRIL 10, 2019

Many businesses will hire recruiting and onboarding agencies to find employees for their burgeoning digital marketing agency, but if you’re going to build an agency without funding then you need to be doing this yourself. When you’re ready, you can hire the right people for the culture that you create around your business.

Marketing 79

Marketing Bootstrapping Sweat Equity Harvest 79

The Startup Toolkit

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

You have a profitable bootstrapped business with good, linear growth. The deal they’re talking about signing will add 50% to your yearly revenue just on its own, but all of that revenue (and more) will be eaten by additional support costs you don’t currently have. They’re also demanding exclusivity for a year.

Bootstrapping 32

Bootstrapping Revenue Cost Sales 32

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2011

The alternative is to work with an innovation institute to evaluate your technology, or hire a consultant. This normally means more then 30 employees, and more then $1 million in revenue. If you need help at this stage, look for a local university teaching night courses on entrepreneurship , or how to build a business plan.

Incubator 230

Incubator Startup Exit Strategy Institutional Investors 230

The Startup Magazine

JULY 25, 2019

The interest rates on bank overdrafts, however, are typically charged above the base rates and the overdraft amount is usually repayable on demand in most cases. Bootstrapping/Organic Growth. The revenue that you receive can then be used for ploughing back into growing the business. Peer-to-Peer Loans.

Startup 92

Startup Angel Investor Finance Bootstrapping 92

The Startup Toolkit

NOVEMBER 17, 2011

You have a profitable bootstrapped business with good, linear growth. The deal they’re talking about signing will add 50% to your yearly revenue just on its own, but all of that revenue (and more) will be eaten by additional support costs you don’t currently have. They’re also demanding exclusivity for a year.

Bootstrapping 26

Bootstrapping Revenue Cost Sales 26

Up and Running

APRIL 24, 2018

You and your team must know how to think about problems from new angles and adapt to changing market and customer demands. For example, having flexible work hours means you can hire talented candidates from different time zones, which will increase your productivity while keeping the costs down.

SBIR 73

SBIR Startup Artificial Inteligence Intellectual Property 73

YoungUpstarts

DECEMBER 2, 2019

Not only does the outsourcing business model improve performance and reduce a company’s overall costs – a significant appeal to bootstrapped startups – but it also gives you access to a worldwide talent pool that would otherwise be beyond your range. Inefficiencies can often cost businesses between 20-30% of their annual revenue.

Technical Review 147

Technical Review Due Diligence Technical Support Bootstrapping 147

Software By Rob

JANUARY 8, 2019

Hundreds and hundreds of tweets, re-tweets, likes, Hacker News upvotes, email responses…it was immediately obvious that there is pent up demand for this kind of alternative early-stage startup funding. The response was overwhelming. Previously On.TinySeed. Would love to chat and see how/if we can help.

Early Stage 46

Early Stage Valuation Seed Capital Revenue 46

Hippoland

MARCH 13, 2016

Do you bootstrap and attempt to raise again when you have made more progress? To be clear, growth means increased revenue or increased number of users/customers (or both!). You could certainly hire more people with $50M, but again, growth is not measured in terms of employees. It’s measured in revenue results.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage .Net Revenue Acquisition 48

www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

If the answer to the question centers around “We will achieve revenue soon so our net will improve and give us more runway,” it means the company is in trouble because no product ever ships on time nor achieves the company’s “conservative forecast.” These days revenue is the best source of capital. Who is on your board of directors?

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

YoungUpstarts

AUGUST 16, 2016

Myself and the other founders managed to develop our company and generate more than 200,000,000 visits, hire 22 people, get 3,000+ customers, and promote products for the likes of Creative Labs, Polaroid, and Sony. It was a way for us to stay creative and it also brought in some revenue. When you are bootstrapping cash flow is king.

Greece 100

Greece United Kingdom Ukraine Philippines 100

Hearpreneur

JUNE 14, 2017

I hired another guide to help with the load, and I started charging for tickets to pay the guide. We’ve continued bootstrapping since then — today we are a $2.5 I hire the best, so we’re all able to have it all. The revenue on the darkroom rental was close to what I was making weekly, I was in disbelief.

Entrepreneur 128

Entrepreneur South Africa PR Thailand 128

Austin Startup

MAY 21, 2017

I incorporated a business and started hiring my fraternity brothers to do tech support. By the time I graduated, we were doing a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in revenue. I bootstrapped that business for 10 years before selling it. It was the beginnings of a scalable business.

Austin 54

Austin Non-disclosure Agreement Artificial Inteligence Software 54

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

I bootstrapped it on my own. Then we hired two people and got profitable again in another six months. You’ve bootstrapped a company, so you can see all those things, and you’re skeptical of the VC side. Trying to figure out how the Silicon Valley… again, my last venture was not built here. 99%, maybe 99.8%

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

www.paulgraham.com

APRIL 28, 2010

Bootstrapping (= Consulting) Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investorsat all? We could not have bootstrapped Viaweb, for example. We chargedquite a lot for our software—about $140 per user per month—butit was at least a year before our revenues would have covered evenour paltry costs.

Bootstrapping 77

Bootstrapping Term Sheet Founder Startup 77

K9 Ventures

JULY 21, 2016

It sucks when it happens as you miss the window for servicing the demand that exists, but it’s a much better problem to have than to end up with a lot of excess inventory which doesn’t move. Should you simply take reservations in order to test demand and prove product-market fit?

Software Review 48

Software Review Forecast Portfolio Distribution 48

Up and Running

FEBRUARY 17, 2016

A new system might be subject to delays, especially if demand from other breweries is high, but you’ll be able to design to your needs and specifications, and you’ll have support when issues arise (and they will). Friends and family are the most common backers, and many startups bootstrap. Merely making good beer isn’t enough anymore.

Oregon 60

Oregon Jordan SBA Cofounder 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2012

Jared: Yeah, I think initially the real focus of Padseeker is going to be an on-demand solution to create a website for property management. Jason: I don’t know what “on-demand solution” means. All you’ve proven is that you can make $200 a month in revenue off of some basic websites. Jason: In revenue.

API 220

API Software Review Hosting Technical Review 220

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2019

Most small businesses and startups that are looking to grow— hire a new employee , or buy a new piece of equipment, or open a new location —need to think hard about cash flow, or making sure they have enough money in the bank to meet payroll and other financial obligations. Hire the right team. What you need to know about buying new.

Oregon 24

Oregon Jordan Software Review Distribution 24

techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like. In my neck of the woods programmers are hired guns at first year in college.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Derek Sivers about me blog books email list contact How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen 2010-06-19 Do you have an idea for a website, online business, or application, but need a programmer to turn that idea into reality? Say, “We are hiring a developer to create only the beginning of an application. Hire one from each.

CTO Hire 84

CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84

Startup Lessons Learned

JUNE 15, 2020

They threw a pizza party that first night, they've now raised millions of dollars and have thrown hundreds of thousands more, not just in support of frontline workers, but in support of restaurants who, as everyone knows, are struggling in these times with a dramatic decline in revenue, in customers. So Frontline Foods is a genuine win-win.

San Francisco 68

San Francisco Founder Community Software Review 68

www.quora.com

JANUARY 16, 2011

You can argue that the DNA created by Microsoft's over emphasis on distribution (Steve) and development (Bill), has ultimately cost it $50bn or more in lost revenue, market share and market capitalization. Spencer Fry , Founder of two bootstrapped companies. They are many more examples. The former focussed on biz.

Technical Review 51

Technical Review Startup CTO Hire Cofounder 51