Poll: is your startup profitable?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5723765

by mkrecny • 13 years ago

30 46 13 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

fxtentacle• 13 years ago

got 3. one is profitable, two not

davidw• 13 years ago

Other interesting options:

* Yes - and we're making more than we would working elsewhere.

* Yes - and it's at least "ramen profitable" and more or less self-sustaining.

* Yes, but not enough to live on just yet.

preinheimer• 13 years ago

I like this, we're covering all direct costs, but we're not paying ourselves nearly what we're worth yet.

MattBearman2• 13 years ago

Definitely, mine would be "Yes, but not enough to live on just yet."

qompiler• 13 years ago

* Yes - but actually no, we are still in denial.

jpdoctor• 13 years ago

I would add: Yes, and our biggest problem is how to invest the profits.

regal• 13 years ago

Here's a vote for door #2: ramen profitable, bordering on door #1: more than would make elsewhere.

gkumartvm• 13 years ago

nope..

tyw2• 13 years ago

yep! just quit my job and went full-time on the startup this week, too!

dkroy• 13 years ago

You might as well plug it now, I and others are probably curious about it now.

tyw2• 13 years ago

http://www.audiomack.com

Built it in our spare time early last year, went live around the end of Feb 2012. Been growing like a weed ever since, and this year it's just been too much work to keep making progress on AudioMack in addition to having a full-time job.

Never really plugged it on HN because it didn't seem like quite the right crowd and I feel awkward about shameless self-promotion. :)

_yb• 13 years ago

Not exactly a startup: our project [1] is making some revenue, but is far from profitable (edit: which is kind of on purpose, but that's a story for another time)

[1] http://freelancersticker.com

MattBearman2• 13 years ago

Interesting, I was thinking of doing something like this to my macbook recently.

danmaz74• 13 years ago

3 should be more like "no, and we don't have any revenue".

nerdyglasses• 13 years ago

no revenue at the moment

tpf10000• 13 years ago

yes, http://toptestprep.com

agurha• 13 years ago

No, but we got revenue. http://urlbox.io - We are screenshot as a service.

peacemaker• 13 years ago

Interesting. This seems like the very definition of "a feature, not a product" yet you have revenue. Are you forecasting growth that will support you full time?

I ask because I seem to have 100's of ideas like this but feel like they fall into the 'feature' category, rather than a full business.

Anyway, good luck with it, the site and features look great!

TheTaytay• 13 years ago

Yep! (I feel proud and lucky to say that)

Bootstrapped on $60 in Adwords by my business partner when he was selling a finance spreadsheet in college. :)

http://www.youneedabudget.com

matthiaswh• 13 years ago

Happy YNAB user here. I was impressed by the number and quality of the support and classes you offer. The philosophy behind YNAB aligns really well with my own. Also happy to see that one time purchase software can be profitable in the Age of SaaS.

NKCSS• 13 years ago

Off-Topic: but the site looks awesome and so does the video :)

tluyben2• 13 years ago

No, but have revenue. If not for the crisis we would be making profit now, so it will soon happen :)

massarog• 13 years ago

Yes we are profitable and we've always bootstrapped everything we do: http://viralsweep.com

suhastech• 13 years ago

Not sure if it'd count (not really a startup) but could live on it in India.

http://thehorcrux.com/

That makes me think, coders in India have an edge when it comes to quitting their outsourced job. Being ramen profitable (or idly profitable?) is actually quite easy compared to the first world counterparts.

Call it reverse geo-arbitrage?

RivieraKid• 13 years ago

Those who are profitable are more likely to vote.

lquist2• 13 years ago

Anybody willing to share profit ranges?

We're in the $1-5M range. About 9 months old. Bootstrapped.

olalonde3• 13 years ago

Wow, that's pretty amazing. B2B or B2C? SaaS? Where do your revenues come from (monthly subscription, advertising, etc.)?

lquist2• 13 years ago

B2C. Service, not product. But we don't have any recurring revenue (yet!).

Can't say much more than that unfortunately!

taf2• 13 years ago

yeah that is really good after only 9 months - what business?

bernatfp• 13 years ago

Would love reading a blog post about your story so far.

yesimahuman• 13 years ago

Yes. Quadrupled revenue over the last few months and are now 6 full-time people. Primarily bootstrapped apart from TechStars.

http://drifty.com/

olalonde3• 13 years ago

It's hard to believe that poll isn't heavily biased towares "yes". Looking at the results it's almost as if over 1/3 of startups are profitable which is pretty far from the stats I have seen before.

pbo• 13 years ago

I was lead tech (and first hire) at a hardware startup which launched two unsuccessful products then ran out of money (despite some seed funding). After that I left.

Revenue and margins yes, but far from break-even.

return0• 13 years ago

Other option: Yes, one of them :)

Ixiaus• 13 years ago

Profit is funny for the startup scene. When first starting out building my company, my co-founder and I were often focused heavily on "profit" when talking to VC's and pitching.

At a demo day we had a meeting with a partner from a big fund and pitched him. He turned us down and told us why but was kind enough to have a follow-on meeting with us to talk further about our pitching strategy and general business strategy.

One of the key points I got out of speaking with him was this: VC's (institutional, not necessarily angels) generally want to see high-growth and not high-profit. If you've got revenue coming in and you're "profitable" on it, then you need to be growing more (spending it). To the point that most VC's believe you should grow so fast that you never reach profitability until you exit OR decide to "level out" the business.

benjamincburns3• 13 years ago

Isn't this a huge burden on the economy as a whole? The vast majority of businesses which follow this strategy will go out of business without ever creating more value than they consumed. A significant percentage of those will over leverage and file bankruptcy, pushing their losses off onto those who helped finance them while driving up interest rates.

How does it pan out long-term for a VC to advocate for this strategy and this strategy alone?

Edit: My gut instinct is that this is an example of a VC valuing short-term gain at the expense of literally everything else. They don't want your business to succeed, they want their business to succeed. They don't want the economy to boom, they want to outpace the economy any way they can. Maybe I just lack experience in this realm (I have nearly zero experience dealing with VCs), and/or this is overly cynical, but this just pisses me off.

olalonde3• 13 years ago

They advocate this strategy if you (plan to) take VC money. They are probably not claiming every startup should follow this strategy.

aclements18• 13 years ago

Your perspective is correct, but the vast majority (99%) of new businesses in the economy will never raise money from a VC (and shouldn't).

Most VC portfolios are structured such that the expectation (at least at the time of investment) is that this company will be able to make up for ALL the inevitable losses I am going to take in the other companies I invest in. Well, not really that cynical, but in reality usually one or two companies in a fund are where all the profits come from, so you can understand why investors push each company to swing for the fences.

Key takeaway for entrepreneurs is just to know when a VC is right for your business and when it's not. The key factor here is how quickly you need to scale. For example most entrepreneurs don't have the goal of a nine figure exit for their business in the next several years, but some do.

Not all VCs invest this way. Here's a good read by Greycroft Partner Ian Sigalow that walks through the economics of how they invest and why: http://www.sigalow.com/2012/01/a-new-take-on-series-a

kiyanforoughi• 13 years ago

The problem with this poll is that all the folks who are unprofitable will keep quiet and all those that are will share it proudly :-)

Useless poll

mkrecny• 13 years ago

Actually the data is anonymous, while the comments aren't.

bennyg• 13 years ago

Just look at the results. That seems not to be the case.

magicmarkker• 13 years ago

Yes, doing at least a million in profit a year for the past 2 years.

SZenith• 13 years ago

Forgive me, for I am ignorant. Why do some many of you not even get revenue?

Is the aim to build a userbase before monetizing the site (or flipping it)?

benjamincburns3• 13 years ago

In my case my "startup" is a side project which doesn't cost me much to run. I started when my day job was rather soul-sucking. The day job has since improved, but I still work on the side gig from time to time.

I'd say my strategy now, if I have one, is to build in some natural virality so that I don't have to exert too much effort to attract new users. Presently if I market I'll get a good number of users for a week or so, then traffic drops back to nil. Once I get a regular user base I'll look at monetizing.

MicahWedemeyer• 13 years ago

You'll have to do a retrospective and let us know how this promotional campaign for microha.us goes.

Poll: is your startup profitable?

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