Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

For a startup, having great sales DNA is a wonderful asset. This is the magic of sales: by learning about each customer in-depth, they can convince each of them that this product would solve serious problems. But here’s where a truly great sales artist comes in. They are closing orders.

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Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). As always, there are exceptions: if you build a viral consumer product (such as an Instagram) where people are just coming to your site / app in droves at no cost to you, then you’ve got a great business.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

Hippoland

AUGUST 8, 2018

Very simply, your cost to acquire a customer needs to be lower than the value of that customer (lifetime value). As always, there are exceptions: if you build a viral consumer product (such as an Instagram) where people are just coming to your site / app in droves at no cost to you, then you’ve got a great business.

Founder 48

Founder Sales Cycle Affiliate Retention 48

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

The big enterprise software companies almost all bootstrapped their way to profitability before they got their first external investors (typically via an IPO). In a consumer Web venture, the hustler/sales guy is non-core (a few biz dev deals are important but not core). SaaS reduces your sales cost but also means that VC is needed.

Software 127

Software Startup Architecture Bootstrapping 127

Up and Running

MAY 22, 2017

There are tons of resources to help you launch a bootstrapped business. What overhead costs will the business have to deal with at launch? How will those costs change as the business grows? Meyer and Bolduc always knew that men’s skin care products are not likely to be shared publicly (much less virally) by their customers.

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Due Diligence eCommerce Cofounder Bootstrapping 113

Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2017

Practically speaking, the burning need was to begin hiring employees so that I could spend more of my day on product development, partnerships and driving sales. Why take on the costs of space, salespeople, etc? The viral nature of it has been incredibly fruitful in building awareness and oftentimes conversion as well.

Marketing 48

Marketing Design Acquisition Bootstrapping 48

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 7, 2015

Estimate your costs, including a 50 percent gross margin, as a lower bound on a price. Here again is your chance to make pivots for almost no cost. A small advisory board of outside people with experience in your domain can give you the unbiased feedback you need, as well as connections for setting up distribution and sales channels.

Business Model 120

Business Model Technical Review Advisory Board Software Review 120

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

“We also got lucky and qualified for some startup benefits with companies like Rackspace, who covered our infrastructure costs for the first year,” continues Arsenault. “We Gadea leveraged his connections in Silicon Valley to seed viral distribution of the product, which, in turn, generated the revenue to hire engineers and scale the company.

Sweat Equity 78

Sweat Equity Software Review Vesting Cofounder 78

Software By Rob

MARCH 26, 2015

I decided it was time to put pen to paper and lay out what I see as a repeatable path with a higher-than-normal success rate, to bootstrapping yourself to the point of quitting your job. Recurring revenue is the holy grail for bootstrappers, as we’ll discuss later in this post, but it can also be a major obstacle to making a sale.

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Technical Review SEO Revenue 41

Software By Rob

MARCH 26, 2015

I decided it was time to put pen to paper and lay out what I see as a repeatable path with a higher-than-normal success rate, to bootstrapping yourself to the point of quitting your job. Recurring revenue is the holy grail for bootstrappers, as we’ll discuss later in this post, but it can also be a major obstacle to making a sale.

Bootstrapping 27

Bootstrapping Technical Review SEO Revenue 27

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

“We also got lucky and qualified for some startup benefits with companies like Rackspace, who covered our infrastructure costs for the first year,” continues Arsenault. “We Gadea leveraged his connections in Silicon Valley to seed viral distribution of the product, which, in turn, generated the revenue to hire engineers and scale the company.

Sweat Equity 50

Sweat Equity Software Review Vesting Cofounder 50

Reid Hoffman

MARCH 19, 2019

And, as the industrial revolution showed us, there are some real costs to scale. The implication is that blitzscaling ignores things like “business model innovations that were rooted in a future that the competition didn’t yet understand” in favor of “spending to acquire customers below cost.”. The third is high gross margins.

Cofounder 28

Cofounder Business Model IPO Non-Compete 28

Up and Running

MAY 23, 2016

The software was sold based on installation cost running on local servers for enterprises—which was very, very expensive. In the tactics section, list your sales channels and describe how you will be selling your products. Later you will want to come back and create a proper sales forecast, cash flow forecast, and expense budget.

Software Review 74

Software Review Software Delaware Forecast 74

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

At a high level, business is simple! :) You bring revenue in and your costs send money out the door. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs. The reason I like deer-hunting businesses is that from my own experiences, I can see a clear path to bring in sales profitably. I know nothing about viral marketing.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

At a high level, business is simple! :) You bring revenue in and your costs send money out the door. You want your revenue to be higher than your costs. The reason I like deer-hunting businesses is that from my own experiences, I can see a clear path to bring in sales profitably. I know nothing about viral marketing.

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Duct Tape Marketing

JANUARY 19, 2023

And it's the same thing for individuals because at that early stage of a business, when you don't yet have a product, even sometimes when you don't yet have, um, customers, you don't yet have traction in sales, how are you gonna judge it? Should you bootstrap? Well, you're gonna judge it by the team, by the co-founders.

Audio 85

Audio Cofounder Framework Early Stage 85

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Where they don’t belong is with a bootstrapped founder trying to figure out how many customers she can expect to reach next month on her shoestring marketing budget. Maybe we can’t rely on our freemium, advertising-based, viral revenue model, though. Capital needs are a function of the cost of delivering the product.

Marketing 64

Marketing Software Review Matching Bootstrapping 64

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 5, 2018

Estimate your costs, including a 50 percent gross margin, as a lower bound on a price. Here again is your chance to make pivots for almost no cost. An advisory board of outside people with experience in your domain can give you the unbiased feedback you need, as well as connections for setting up distribution and sales channels.

Product 137

Product Advisory Board Business Model Cofounder 137

sharkseo.com

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

RSS Feed 19 Nov 2010, Posted by admin in Featured , Nohat , 26 Comments SEO Advice for Bootstrapped Startups SEO can provide a hugely valuable source of traffic, if done right – especially for a bootstrapped startup where money is tight. Aaron Wall, SEO Book Add a free feature which is accessible, useful, and spreads virally.

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Bootstrapping SEO Startup Widget 49

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Bootstrap – Online bookkeeping software that lets you track sales and expenses, organize your records for tax time, and more. NetBooks – Marketing, sales, inventory and financial control in one place. Track leads and manage your sales pipeline. Invoice Journal – Free invoicing program.

Software Review 78

Software Review Social Media Social Network Software 78