Ask HN: How much did you invest in your bootstrapped startup?
Just curious how much others have put into their own business.
Also, did you see a return on that money? In other words, get the investment back plus some?
Published in 2012, this chronicle by @drewrv details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 8 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 14 comments
So far, I've spent about $40, all on hosting charges. As someone with design and development skills I was able to do all the work myself. I can't imagine how a non-developer could do anything similar without a huge budget.
Having said that, I haven't had much success. Although I've had a fair amount of traffic and a significant number of comments to the effect that my site is really well executed, I haven't had any sales so far two weeks after launch. I guess it's early days but it's hard not to be disheartened and question if the idea is viable. It's hard working alone and not having anyone to motivate and bounce ideas off of.
My site is http://www.devtest.net if you're interested in having a look.
I have invested $70k, and spent around $15k so far over the last few months.
I am a unique case because I am also applying for a E2 Investor visa, and $70k was the number recommended by my immigration attorney to satisfy the visa application. If I didn't have that requirement I would have spent less on legal fees and hopefully would have launched the MVP for around $10k. I still haven't launched, but am about to start a closed beta program.
So far, about 1100 USD. A MacBook Pro and the domain name. It is an open source project and there is no biz angle as of now really.