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Comment by yurishimo | Hacker News Reader

If the final user numbers are accurate, revenue was a bit over $3k a month. Not even enough to really pay the founder if living in the US. Assuming $200/mo for servers, backups, and help desk software, that doesn't leave much after taxes for take home pay.

As someone who just discovered this software, I am now really curious to give it a try!

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Yep that's right.

I launched around 3 years ago, and it was brutally slow. I think it took a year to hit 100 subscribers.

Another year to hit 300.

This past fall, YNAB increased their prices which gave me decent jump from around 500 to 800 subscribers which is where I'm at today.

I did everything wrong when it comes to marketing and getting subscribers. I focused on the tech and never invested in content, building hype, etc. Well, I take that back -- sometimes I did, but only 10% instead of 70% like I should have been doing.

As a bootstrapped solo founder myself (even though I have somehow built a small team after 7 years), I totally get what you are saying. Be proud of what you did and most don't even get to do what you did. It is so hard to do things alone and especially when you realize it is mostly about Marketing and Sales (and not the product only).

I'm a firm believer that the only way to stand out in the B2C world is to have a VC backed marketing budget. You can't bootstrap a positive CAC in a reasonable timeframe without going bankrupt as a solo founder.

Can I just say that I appreciate the transparency about your numbers here! As a bootstrapped SAAS builder here, this gives me perspective

This is awesome feedback and I appreciate your honesty. I will help so many remember what matters in their next ventures.

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