My Bootstrapped Micro-Startup Got Acquired
Published in 2019, this chronicle by @myth_drannon details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE 233 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 88 comments
Sounds like the buyer got a terrific deal.
There seemed to be rapid growth and interest. Getting any revenue is hard - growing from 700/month to 7000/month can be mostly momentum. Just sitting on it would make more.
Maybe there is more to the story but if not, please hold out with your next project. You'll get low ballers.
I had someone offer me 30k for an app I spent a month building. I would have taken it but he wanted to do a payment plan and I said no way. The project has since grown without much help from me to ~2.5k/month and will likely continue for years. It already made more than the offer.
The ability to sell it is still there at any time and for more money just from the momentum of growth. Once you sell, though, you stop collecting revenue and having the potential of growing it even bigger.
If someone wants it at first, it's likely worth more than they're offering. They know it and you should, too.
Developing a SaaS product isn’t for everybody but if you are a developer and want to expand your breadth it’s a wonderful and rewarding challenge.
Nothing is easy but there has never been more resources, support and tooling for indie SaaS makers. If you want to get started the indiehackers community is fantastic and my inbox is always open for answers/encouragement Shane at Cronitor.io
Congratulations Danish! :) I help him with this writing of the blog post 50% when we are on the ferry ride from indonesia to singapore.
I'm glad a domain .xyz can build a microstartup "side project turn to profitable business" and you get acquired.
I'm really proud of you!
Umm... What ?
That's insane.. But always good to hear some good stories once in a while!
It's heartbreaking to see people who scrape websites and make 60k in a weekend project while opensource maintainers for projects used by thousands of companies are begging for 10 dollars a month