What companies that are making at least $1 million a year didn’t take funding? | Hacker News Reader

What companies that are making at least $1 million a year didn’t take funding?

15 pointsronnwer21 comments

I'm looking to learn from companies that were started in the last 2 - 3 years that are making at least $1 million a year but didn't take any outside funding.

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You could try the Inc 5000 list:

http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/the-full-list.html

It's not exactly what you want, as these companies will have been in business a little longer, but you can filter the list by earnings and number of employees to see some higher-earning small businesses from recent years.

For example, there's Logik, discussed here a couple of days ago:

http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/company-profile.html?id=2009...

You might also try Mixergy, which has a bunch of profiles.

You sir win at being useful, I can't wait to get this list scraped in.

it's interesting and well structured data, but it's basically impossible to query for interesting things in the presented format...

37Signals [Signal vs Noise blog] has a feature called "Bootstraped, Profitable, and Proud" latest is below, there is at least one more I've read.

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2385-bootstrapped-profitable-...

That one is Logik and the other one is Campaign Monitor

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2342-bootstrapped-profitable-...

I think that the common thread for many businesses that have bootstrapped to high-profit profitability in very short order, with little startup capital is enterprise software that the founding team has either A) created and has a very good unique value proposition or B) services very well and in either case, has dedicated sales staff.

Most other businesses take a fair amount of money for either equipment or marketing. Logik talks instead about how it's first sale was around $45,000.

I'm amazed you weren't able to get more responses to this, but after racking my brain it took a bit to come up with one.

How about Threadless? Though I can't seem to find anything that says when they were founded, I'd guess it's about 3 years, but could be more.

37 Signals didn't taking funding until after they were already successful, and of course they've been around for more than 3 years.

threadless was founded in 2000ish. they didn't take money until around 2007ish.

37signals is about the same (time period and what not)

and of course there are many non-funded, non-tech, startups that make that much after 2-3 years too.

I spent a few years managing a bar that grossed that much. It's not a lot of money for a business.

Are we talking about gross or net here? It isn't clear. But yes, most capital intensive ventures are going to get a big gross.

Net

I know it's not a lot, but I am trying to learn from these company.

I've known a specialized contractor who has done as well in his first year.

what type of contractor?

hazardous materials removal.

can you list any you can think of please?

Balsamiq - http://www.balsamiq.com

I'm pretty sure PlentyOfFish.com qualifies.

They're more than three years old.

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