We closed a friends and family round.

First, a little background. We were pretty dead-set on bootstrapping from the get-go when we started this in Jan 2020. However, when when it took us a year to learn what to build, we realized that we were almost out of our savings and needed a little more fuel to keep going before we would need to get day jobs. When we initially built out our first product which was a stand-alone hardware device that helped songwriters finish their songs, we had no idea if it would sell or not. Months later, in the middle of a pandemic, we had an epiphany. Even if we had the most extraordinary Kickstarter Campaign ($1m. +) we would still not necessarily have a sustainable company. So, after 8 months of working on that product, we pivoted to a SaaS model. We got smart. But we were also behind the eight ball. Fast forward to Feb of 2021.

My co-founder's brother had just retired from Airbnb and was looking for something else exciting to work on. He had spent almost a year traveling and was bored and crazy like us. He asked to buy in and be a part of the founding team. He is an operating founder, and brings a ton to the table. We were marketing/sales/engineering heavy. So, we took a 'friends and family' round to extend our runway. As a Director of IT and a Mike brings expertise in scaling back end and IT for companies like Linkedin, Google, and Airbnb. He was also a Linux guru back in the day. He is an executor through and through. And we are so glad we brought him on the team.

It's funny how you go down the road and try to figure out what you have to build to get to product-market fit, and then out of the blue something happens that you didn't think was something you wanted, and now you're happy as a clam taking another path.

So, onward! Our next step is getting folks to pay for an app they have said they want. How? We're not sure. That's why all of the Indie Hackers posts are so great. We have ideas, but everything is just an educated guess. Our next step after that is getting our first 10, 100, and 1000 customers. And then, when we get cash flow positive, someday we can build that hardware device. Yay for learning and building openly!

I'm here for any other SaaS founders who want to shoot the breeze about business models, marketing tactics, community building, etc!

Cheers! And thanks for being here alongside us!