Friendly is at $14K MRR and we don’t want any investors.
https://friendly.ch/en/no-investors
We get asked time and again why we don’t want investors at Friendly as a tech startup. It’s not that we haven’t received any offers yet. But we have turned them all down and will continue to do so in the future. For good reasons.
@StefanVetter - congratulations! $14K MRR is awesome. I'm curious to know how did you get your early customers? Software like Friendly would be super difficult to market; or is it not?
Great question! Yep, our software is not too easy to market because it takes a lot of trust from customers. I wrote here about how we reached the first $1,000 MRR: https://stefanvetter.com/en/friendly-1k
🍸 My two-person bootstrapped startup is sitting pretty at just under $20k, and we feel the same way. I'm continually astonished by the number of unsolicited private equity or VC inquiries we get; nothing puts me more in the mood to buckle down and get some work done like firing off a "thanks but no thanks, we're good" reply to a cold outreach email from some random PE or angel fund.
Not ruling it out forever, but definitely for the foreseeable future it just doesn't make any sense to us. What would we do if we sold, go get jobs? Man can only drink so many martinis in a day.
Props to you, @StefanVetter, for reaching the bootstrapped equivalent of FU-money. Extra nice to see from a fellow European!
Exactly! And greetings to our neighboring country France! 👋
article is good however you are treating all investors as vc investors who want growth at all costs. There are other class of investors who want to invest in profitable stable businesses and get steady dividends. May be your title should be why you don't want VC investment since all your points are applicable to them.
How would you call this "other type" of investors? And isn't that more like a "loan" kind of thing where you give money and get some fixed return (except that the startup does not have to pay the "loan" back eventually but pays interest forever)?
something like this https://tinyseed.com/ .
No loan and equity are very different financial concepts. What you are describing is royalty+equity in lieu of money that is not what i asked about, i am asking about taking regular equity for e.g. you decided that your friends product has a potential and so you invest some amount for equity knowing fully well that he is indiemaker himself and there is no plan or pressure for growth. I see it happening all the time.
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Huge congrats 🎉
Great article! I am working to keep away from VC money as well. For my point of view, the only thing that I am doing differently is the exit part. For me, there is nothing wrong to dream with an exit to compensate for years of hard work.
Nice one @StefanVetter, I've added you to my marketing automation landscape https://kpicrunch.com/report/marketing-automation
Thank you for adding us!
congrats for the amazing growth !
Very interesting article, Stefan. Thanks for sharing your journey and perspective. I also think for those who cannot fund their own startup and stay bootstrapped, it's challenging to not raise funds. Especially, if investors come with a lot of "expertise" and mentorship. It's important to know the "why" behind your raise and as long as it isn't just shiny object syndrome that attracts you.
Sure. I know I am privileged because I was able to fund Friendly from the revenue of another business (an agency) which I built up before.
That's amazing, Stefan. Definitely a great way to learn and earn on your own terms.
Great insights!
Note : the french version of the website can be improved (contains errors)
I know 🙈
😅
So happy for you Stefan. what was your biggest challenge reaching until here?
Even, I'm currently bootstrapping a tech product, so your input will be helpful to me.
Biggest challenge was when I personally fucked up our servers: https://friendly.ch/en/retreat-budapest
I am curious do the .ch domains rank on Google? I don't recall seeing any.
They rank fairly well I would say. In our home market Switzerland the local domain (.ch) might even give an advantage over let's say a .com, while a .com might rank a little bitte better everywhere else. But I don't think it's a huge disadvantage. Take Notion for example: they are using a Somali (.so) to this day, and it did not hinder their growth.
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? I don't want investors.