Bootstrapping Profits - Valiocon 2013

Bootstrapping Profits Otherwise known as “building a business” Thursday, June
6, 13

) | | | we’ll get back to this later...
Thursday, June 6, 13

CLICK HERE! Thursday, June 6, 13

We make buying and selling ads easier, and more efficient

5 YEARS $50 MILLION $0 RAISED Thursday, June 6, 13

Not the largest Thursday, June 6, 13

We’re also not the smallest Thursday, June 6, 13

Cape Porpoise Thursday, June 6, 13

credit: http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/08/01/spectrum-48k-was-better/ Thursday, June 6, 13

credit: http://www.edibleapple.com/2009/02/09/oregon-trail-coming-to-the-iphone-eventually/ Thursday, June 6, 13

I’m not a whiz-kid Thursday, June 6, 13

Hmmm... will this work? Thursday, June 6, 13

The first spreadsheet I built to validate the money side
of BuySellAds What? OK... Amazon Web Services S3 Whoops... not gonna scale forever, $140,000... Thursday, June 6, 13

Trying to figure out which payment processor to go with
Sometimes a random number can become reality Thursday, June 6, 13

High-tech expense projection worksheet Thursday, June 6, 13

February 2007 Came up with idea September 2007 Finished Version
1 Started at HubSpot Full-time February 2008 Launched BuySellAds January 2009 BSA full-time 2 years, concept to real working product, replacing my full-time salary (with a 6 month hiatus) Thursday, June 6, 13

Making the jump from nights & weekends to real business
Time to quit full-time job worst case best case Thursday, June 6, 13

What Actually Happened Yay, the math worked! Thursday, June 6,
13

Business Structure ...or lack thereof Risky? YEP. But I don’t
have any money, so who cares? Sue me... Setup Cost = $0 Todd Garland (doing business as) BuySellAds Thursday, June 6, 13

If you want the “nitty gritty” Starting + Sustaining by
Garrett Dimon http://startingandsustaining.com/ buy this book ($99) Thursday, June 6, 13

Sorry... I’m not going to plug Drew & Josh’s book
I assume you all already have it... Thursday, June 6, 13

How did we attract our first users? Thursday, June 6,
13

Hi David, I noticed you have a bunch of sponsors
in the sidebar. I’d love to help make it easier for you to manage those, and also bring you some new advertisers. We’re still in private beta, but the product is solid, and working really well for logopond.com, csselite.com, and 13styles.com. I’d love to add you to the list. If you’re interested to see what inside, here’s an invitation code: http://buysellads.com/register/?invite=HKSius98S98 If you have questions or if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. Cheers, Todd Thursday, June 6, 13

Didn’t waste time building features that could be easily faked.
Stayed in “private beta” for over a year, using the fake invite system. (I’m not sure this works very well today...) We were responsive. (everyone is these days, and now you have to be UBER-responsive) Thursday, June 6, 13

How did I hire our first employee? Thursday, June 6,
13

Original email thread I sent to who is now BuySellAds’
co-founder @nathandev Thursday, June 6, 13

I’m still in high school Thursday, June 6, 13

If you are not a developer, how do you...? If
you’re not an accountant, how do you...? If you’re not a sales person, how do you...? If you’re not a good manager, how do you...? If you don’t know how to ride a bike, how do you...? Thursday, June 6, 13

Figure it out! Re-source-ful-ness come on! Thursday, June 6, 13

Bootstrapping Revenue - Expenses = Profit PROFIT (you hope) IS
> $0 Thursday, June 6, 13

Inc500 2012 founded on personal savings started with less then
$10,000 33% 77% Thursday, June 6, 13

BuySellAds.com domain Dedicated Server Authorize.net account SSL Certificate Fastmail.fm Email
Hosting What does it cost to get started? $2,200 $350 $35 $99 $5 $2,299 one-time $390 monthly formal apology to John Collison for not being a Stripe customer (yet) Thursday, June 6, 13

Less than 1% of companies started each year raise venture
capital Thursday, June 6, 13

76% of tech companies acquired in 2012 had not raised
institutional investment (VC/PE) prior to acquisition http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/acquisitions/tech-mergers-acquisitions-deals-2012-report Thursday, June 6, 13

Yet... 14,100 Thursday, June 6, 13

Let’s refine that query... 9,370 Thursday, June 6, 13

Still want to bootstrap? 143,000 Thursday, June 6, 13

For each bootstrapping related article written on TechCrunch there are
OVER 15 written about venture funding Thursday, June 6, 13

OK, so let’s look at a more serious publication venture
capital 1,271 Thursday, June 6, 13

Drumroll please... bootstrap 9 (nine) 1992!!! Thursday, June 6, 13

What gives? Nothing... it’s just the way it is. Thursday,
June 6, 13

Could not secure coverage for this beautiful product to save
our life. Thursday, June 6, 13

NOBODY CARES! The only real advice you need about bootstrapping

If you need to win awards... Thursday, June 6, 13

If you need to build traction through press coverage... Thursday,
June 6, 13

Go raise some money... (it’s OK) Thursday, June 6, 13

Let’s do the math But Wait! Thursday, June 6, 13

Widget Co. 35% in exchange for 3 million Series A
20% allocated to employees & executives 25% in exchange for 7 million Series B 10% for each founder + = 100% Thursday, June 6, 13

50% of exits are less than $50 million http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/acquisitions/tech-mergers-acquisitions-deals-2012-report Thursday,
June 6, 13

Acquisition price (all cash): $50 million Investor 1 owns 35%:
$17.5 million Employees own 20%: $10 million Each founder owns 10%: $5 million Investor 2 owns 25%: $12.5 million (each) Thursday, June 6, 13

Don’t forget about Uncle Sam! $5,000,000 million - Uncle Sam’s
cut $4,000,000 million Thursday, June 6, 13

What can you do with 4 million bucks? 1. Pay
off your mortgage or buy a house 2. Watch it collect dust in your bank account (or agonize over the ups and downs of the stock market) ... and we didn’t even assume what would happen if it were a cash and stock deal Thursday, June 6, 13

Acquisition Price (all cash): $50 Million with $0 raised Each
founder owns 45%: $22.5 million Employees own 10%: $5 million (each) After Uncle Sam - $18 Million each Thursday, June 6, 13

What can you do with 18 million bucks? 1. Pay
off your mortgage or buy a house 2. Watch it collect dust in your bank account (or agonize over the ups and downs of the stock market) 3. Spend as much time with your family for the rest of your life as you would like... Thursday, June 6, 13

( | | | Thursday, June 6, 13

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with raising cash to execute your
plan Thursday, June 6, 13

High-risk High-reward (with other people’s money) Thursday, June 6, 13

All money comes with strings Make sure they’re strings you
can and want to live with that’s one vicious fish hook! Thursday, June 6, 13

Just because you are bootstrapping now... doesn’t mean you will
always have to bootstrap Thursday, June 6, 13

...all bootstrapped in the beginning Thursday, June 6, 13

Microsoft and GitHub founders are STUPID RICH because of bootstrapping

Why we (BuySellAds) are not raising capital? Thursday, June 6,
13

We like being in TOTAL control Many reasons... Not sure
what we’d do with the money and... Thursday, June 6, 13

family-first Thursday, June 6, 13

BuySellAds is a remote team 3 in Boston 4 in
California 2 in Toronto 1 in Quebec 1 in Leipzig, Deutschland 1 in London 1 in Texas 1 in Maine 1 in Romania 1 in Bangladesh 3 in North Carolina Thursday, June 6, 13

I’m nervous how that would change if we raised some
cash We’re not interested in operating un-profitably ahead of growth. Thursday, June 6, 13

Let your passion prevail Don’t get caught up in all
the hype & Thursday, June 6, 13

Build Build Build Ship Ship Ship Thursday, June 6, 13

and most importantly... Make sure the MATH WORKS Thursday, June
6, 13

@toddo http://BuySellAds.com [email protected] Thursday, June 6, 13

Bootstrapping Profits - Valiocon 2013

Bootstrapping Profits - Valiocon 2013

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