16 Lessons Learned Bootstrapping Kinsta From $0 to 7-Figures in Revenue

We’ve been asked a lot by our clients over the years why Kinsta was born, how we started it, and how we got to the level at which we are now. Each company and startup has its own unique story, and personally, I love to read them because I always find a few hidden gems, tips, and how-tos we can use and apply to our own business.

This article is about the lessons we learned during our bootstrapping journey, and how we turned our startup into a 7-figure business. Some of our decisions turned out to be great, while others cost us a lot of money and time. But I want to show you that it’s possible to build a profitable SaaS business even if you don’t have any connections, resources, or money.

For those of you who have successfully bootstrapped a business from the ground up, some parts of this post will sound familiar and you’ll probably relate to what I’m talking about. For those of you who are just looking to start your first business, I’m going to try and show you the pros and cons of bootstrapping, what it looks like, and what worked for us. Hopefully, you’ll find something that is applicable to your business.

To be clear, don’t expect any secret growth hacks that nobody has ever used before or silver bullets that will earn you instant big media mentions and thousands of signups. We’re not smarter or more clever than you. Your success really all depends on you and how much you want to succeed.

Achieving millions of annual recurring revenue (ARR) from zero feels good. In fact, if feels great. 😁 But once you reach this you’ll quickly move on and start thinking about your next steps, your next product, service, add-on or marketing channel that will bring you a buttload of new leads and customers. Your next goal suddenly becomes the 8-figure revenue mark and how to get that.

But it’s important to note that running a business is not just about the money or X figures of revenue. It’s about building a team, solving problems continuously day after day, driving innovation, hiring and firing, responsibility, self-learning, self-management and so much more. It’s something that cannot be learned in school or taught by anyone. You need to do it, practice, solve problems, make mistakes, learn from them and improve.

I hope this post will shed some light on bootstrapping and will inspire more of you to start a business.