What I learned bootstrapping a 6-figure business from school

When I got to college three years ago I set two goals for myself. By the time I graduated I wanted to:

  1. Be well read
  2. Learn how to build a real software business

By real business I meant a business that has paying customers from day one and that makes enough money every month that I could work on it full time when I graduated.

Although I wouldn’t go as far as to call myself well-read (I don’t think that’s something to be achieved, just pursued) I can confidently cross goal number two off of my list:

In about 11 months we’ve built Firefly up to well into the 6 figures in recurring revenue.

We’ve done this primarily through two channels: on-site website signups and large partnerships.

In July we announced a partnership with Olark to roll our cobrowsing out to their 5,000 paying customers. We’ve also struck similar deals with much larger customer support companies as well as companies in other verticals like financial services.

What makes this somewhat special is that there’s just two of us working on the business, we’re entirely bootstrapped (except for 20k from the excellent Dorm Room Fund), and this year I’m going to be a senior in college.

Because the past few years have been such a crazy ride, I wanted to take some time to write down some of the things I’ve learned along the way. Continue Reading


11 Sep 2013, 4:15pm | 60 comments

 

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