$0 to $20M ARR in 5 years bootstrapped | I share tips on how to grow a profitable SaaS | Founder & CEO
@lempirehq
(lemlist, lemcal, taplio, tweethunter)
A $1000 investment gave me a 10,000x return
and I became a multi-millionaire at the age of 29.
A playbook for every college kid to become a millionaire in their 20s🧵
Each employee of my company will be a millionaire in the next 5 years.
4 years back, I started it with $1000.
It's now valued at $150M and does $20M in ARR.💰
The story of how I built lemlist (& lempire)! 🧵
How to become a millionaire in the next 2 years:
1- Pick a SaaS in any crowded market
2- Build the same SaaS but for one specific niche
3- Build a community serving that specific niche
4- Grow your SaaS to $40k in MRR
5- Sell your SaaS for 7 figures on Microacquire
Entrepreneur raising $1m pre-revenue: *10s of press articles - Forbes 30 under 30*
Bootstrapped entrepreneur who crossed $1m in revenue: *Who the fuck is that guy?*
What are the best investment you've made?
Personally: I invested $334 to create my bootstrapped startup in 2018 - now it's worth $150,000,000 😅
#bootstrapping4thewin
I'm more impressed by a bootstrapped startup that's doing a few million $ in profit than by a "unicorn" that raised 100s of millions and that is not profitable.
Classes I wish they taught in high school:
• Critical thinking
• How to search online
• Money management and investment
• Sales
• How to communicate effectively
• How to build a website
• Cooking
• Meditation
• Networking
• Marketing
What would you add?
Startup playbook:
• Find a problem you can solve
• Narrow it down for a specific segment
• Build the solution to that problem
• Talk to your customers daily
Everything else is just overcomplication.
To get from $0 to $700,000 ARR, it took us 21 months
Now, in the last month, we added $700,000 new ARR 🤯
What took us 21 months when we started now only takes us 1 month
Everything you’re doing now for your business will have an impact later
It takes time ...
Be patient ...
Steps to SaaS millions:
Step 1 - Pick a SaaS in a niche market
Step 2 - Build vertically in this market
Step 3 - Create a community
Step 4 - Scale to $40K MRR
Step 5 - Sell your SaaS for $1M+
Being a bootstrapped entrepreneur will force you to build great habits from day 1 if you want to succeed.
For me it was:
- talking to our customers
- doing sales
- doing marketing
- writing
- networking
What about you?
#1
startup misconception:
You're bootstrapping your startup because investors rejected you...
Me: Nah bro - I just like my freedom and being profitable 🚀
I’ve met with hundreds of bootstrapped entrepreneurs in the last 4 years.
Their advice helped me reach $10M in ARR.
Here’s the best of the best.
👇 Thread 👇
3.5 years ago, we started
@lemlist
with $1000
Today, we just crossed $10M in ARR, fully bootstrapped
I wrote an article on all we’ve done during the past years to grow without any funding, and how we almost killed the company (twice) 👇
Friend A:
• 200k+ followers on Twitter
• Gets huge engagement when he tweets
• Struggle to grow his business past $300k per year
Friend B:
• Most of his accounts on social media are inactive
• $10m+ in ARR
• $4m profit last year
What you see is not always what it is...
I see people flexing on Twitter because they have 100k+ followers but have never made a single dollar online.
I also see founders of $100,000,000 startups with almost no followers...
What you see ain't always what it is 🚀
If you're looking for a nice work-life balance and a 9 to 5 job, don't join a startup.
Startups are about speed of execution, grind, hustle, tough times, stress, pressure, long hours, extra miles, consistency...
Startups are the opposite of an easy life.
Here are a few examples of bootstrapped startups that became unicorns:
• MailChimp
• Atlassian
• Zoho
• Mojang
• Shutterstock
Never let anyone tell you that you can't become a unicorn being bootstrapped ❤️
Need a logo?
—> Canva is free
Need to learn new skills?
—> YouTube is free
Need to build an audience?
—> Twitter is free
Need a website?
—> Carrd is free
Need to sell?
—> Gumroad is free
All the excuses you've been making have just been solved.
❤️
Reactions to my entrepreneurial journey:
2018: You really wanna fail another business?
2019: Your market is too competitive, you're just a nice to have.
2020: Cool growth hack but it won't last.
2021: Love what you're doing!
2022: Are you hiring?
Ignore the doubters ❤️
To everyone thinking that you can't be rich if you're bootstrapped:
Every day, bootstrapped businesses are being sold for a life-changing amount of money on
@microacquire
People want to build a $1M ARR startup overnight.
It's better to focus on building a $100/month SaaS and then increase your expectations.
Start small, and move step by step.
It's the easiest way not to get discouraged.
Ultimate competitive advantage for an entrepreneur:
Rewiring your brain to become a “doer” rather than a “planner”:
Planner:
- Business plan
- Pitch deck
- 12-month pre-launch strategy
Doer:
- Daily customers' chat
- Ship a product before it's ready
- Write content every day
My favorite marketing strategy for bootstrapped entrepreneurs:
CONSISTENCY
No matter what you do, do it consistently over a long period of time and you'll win ❤️
I founded 2 SaaS companies & became a millionaire at 29!
• Sold Lempod in 2020 - it did $600K in ARR.
• Currently growing Lemlist - does $20M in ARR & is valued at $150M.
But 5 yrs ago, I didn't know SHIT about running a business.
As an early-stage bootstrapped entrepreneur you shouldn't delegate too early...
- I did customer support until we had 1000s of customers.
- I was the only one doing sales until we reached $1m in ARR
It's your role to be obsess with your customers' success 🚀
We were 6 people when we reached $1M in ARR
We were 34 people when we reached $10M in ARR
You don't have to 10x your team if you want to 10x your revenue
Your friend just started a business? Do this 👇
- Like their posts
- Share their posts
- Buy their product (if you can)
- Give them honest & specific feedback
- Support them
Most people will never admit or say that they need help but trust me, they do.
Over the past months, I’ve been working on a book with one goal: to share all my learnings from building a $150M company in 3.5 years with just $1000.
Today, The $150M secret is finally LIVE on Product Hunt! Would love to have your feedback and support❤️
- Raising $1M pre-revenue does not make you a millionaire
- Owning 100% equity in a profitable SaaS with $500K/year revenue does (will explain later)
Simple rule: If you cannot sell, it doesn't count.
If I had to start over to become a millionaire, here's what I'd do 👇
10- Don’t look at the data & don’t do AB testing - do smart marketing instead:
Measuring everything is really time-consuming and doesn’t give the full picture of the impact of what you’re doing. Focus on creating the best content so your users are more successful. Example 👇
Arvid Kahl bootstrapped FeedbackPanda to $600k ARR in less than 2 years, with no employees. In 2019, he made an exit for a "life-changing amount of money."
3 reasons for his success 👇
5- Don’t create, steal.
Ahrefs looked at the keywords their competitors were ranking for and decided to write better content so they can be positioned
#1
for specific keywords (and hence steal their traffic).
In 2018, I started lempire with $1000.
Now it's at $20M/year.
The SaaS market has made so many millionaires.
And you can be the next!
But let me be clear about a few things 👇
Hiring tips for early stage bootstrapped entrepreneurs:
Don't go after the so-called 1st class talent who worked in VC backed startups & have an "impressive" track record.
Look for hustlers who are eager to learn and who want to prove something to themselves.
But what the HELL did lemlist do?
1st outreach email platform that created personalized images automatically for cold emails.
Helps in "exponentially" increasing the reply rate and close rate.
Apple doesn't sell iPhones, it sells status.
Nike doesn't sell sportswear, it sells performance.
RedBull doesn't sell soda drinks, it sells entertainment.
The best brands don't sell products.
They sell outcomes.
What outcomes are you selling?
Behind every successful entrepreneur is:
• Failed businesses
• Lost deals
• Tons of self-doubt
• Rejection
• Money worries
Don't let the internet fool you about overnight success stories...
We should support each other more as entrepreneurs ❤️
What you will endure as an entrepreneur:
1 - People not believing in you
2 - Rejection
3 - Working during weekends
4 - Failure (even when you did everything right)
5 - Not making money for a long time
6 - Doubting yourself
7 - Uncertainty about your success
8 - Losing friends
In 2021, we sold 20% of their shares for $30M and I became a multi-millionaire.
We bootstrapped from $1000 to here.
Now my focus is to help my team achieve their "millionaire goal" by 2028.
I've tested 100s of "productivity hacks"
Most are just bullshit.
To be more productive, keep it simple:
Write down 2-3 things you need to accomplish during the day and just focus on getting those done.
Do that and you'll be more productive than 99% of people out there!
Never say never, especially in business
With
@lemlist
, we’ve reached $4m ARR in 3 years, fully bootstrapped. We’re thankful for where we have gotten, and we’re ready for a new chapter!
So we've decided to fund-raise to skyrocket our business!
Step 2 - Build vertically in this market.
A 'vertical' SaaS is worth a million dollars.
Thinking of building a newsletter SaaS? Build it ONLY for creators.
Building an audience is a long term game
Sales is a long term game
Marketing is a long term game
Building a business is a long term game
Don’t let the press and their “overnight success” articles fool you…
Celebrate progress because results don’t come every day.
Bootstrapping your startup is living a few years of your life like most people won’t. So that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t
Writing a tweet is easy.
Writing a tweet every day for a year is hard.
Talking to one customer is easy.
Talking to one customer every day for a year is hard.
"doing" is easy.
"doing" consistently is hard.
Best hack to be consistent? Do what you love ❤️
Things you need to build a $1m/year business:
1) A niche topic you’re passionate about
2) A problem you can solve
3) An audience you can sell your solution to
.
..
…
983) Rebrand and find a cooler name
Focus on what matters ❤️
I talked to
@agazdecki
, who's helping entrepreneurs become millionaires by selling their companies without too much hassle, thanks to
@microacquire
.
Here are 3 things you need to know if you wanna sell your SaaS and make millions 👇