Ask HN: How much have you spent on your 'bootstrapped' startup
Startup community: I am wondering how much of a budget is considered 'bootstrapped'? And, I am curious to know how much personal capital (or debt) it took to generate something profitable. Of course I understand that the product/service can make all the difference in the world but your experience and numbers will still offer a valuable perspective.
I know there are no guarantees and that past performance is not indicative of future results! I also realize that everyone's risk tolerance starting financial situation is different. Just laying that out so that the comments can focus on individual experiences.
Thanks!
Published in 2012, this chronicle by @leslyn details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
I copied this info from our bootstrapped startup annual report. This info covers development and first month revenues.
Money and hours spent:
10$ + 2 days - domain+naming
9$/m - hosting
0$ - 1 week - webdesign (~ 3000$ value)
0$ - 1 day - front-end development (~ 300$ value)
0$ - 1 week - development (~ 1500$ value)
0$ - 6 days - copy writing (~ 500$ value)
- Facebook official page created 05.05.2011
- Money and hours spent on advertising : ~ 200 $ + 1 month work (~ 4000$ value)
- Over 800 emails received and replied
- 12 paying costumers. (450x12=5400 euro)
- 3 refund (250x3=750 euro)
- Profit - 4650 euro
P.S. Actually I should spend 10000$ for the launch, but because I did everything myself, I didn't spend so much money. I spent too much time learning graphic design, marketing, seo and my expertise on my startup subject. And some coding skills. But because all of them were already familiar to me as a hobby, I dont't count the time spent on learning developing my startup.
I'm starting a sound reinforcement company- for those who don't know what that is, we rent the sound systems that are used at concert events to promoters of such events.
It's an extremely capital-intensive endeavour, and alot's gone into it. I recently inherited 6 digits after both my parents died, and I figured it was a better idea to try to build a money making machine than to just live off it for as long as I could, so I created an LLC, and started building a sound system.
So far after 2 years, I'm just over halfway through building the sound system, and a little less than halfway through building the backoffice IT infrastructure. And I've already spent $160k!
I'm working with a SCORE counselor, and intend to get an SBA loan to cover what I need to finish the sound rig- the IT's in a state where it's just enough to get by until I make some money, so I don't need to spend anymore on that thank goodness.
I don't meet your profitable metric yet (hell, I haven't even launched it yet), but I've been working for a year.
The biggest question is what do you consider spent on the startup? Do living costs count or just direct expenses?
I'd say most of the cost has definitely been in the living costs. My total bill for direct costs (not living costs) so far is probably under <5k.
I was able to profitably launch http://www.committeebox.com for around 500 dollars. That cost includes hosting and such while testing. If I counted all the hours that I've put in we'd have a whole different story :P
What have you been working on for a year without launching?
Been working on FitBolt (fitbolt.com) for about a year, spent ~$200 setting up credit card processing & recurring payments, $50 on business cards, and about $150 on legal fees. LOTS of optimization has kept my appengine costs well within the free quotas, and everything else has only been my time.