Visual Website Optimizer: Bootstrapped, Profitable, and over 4,000 users
Published in 2011, this chronicle by @g0atbutt 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 Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE 50 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 18 comments
Congratulations on your success Paras! It's really inspirational. You entered a competitive niche where most customers don't even know they need your product, took on huge players like Omniture and Google, and gained market share by building a superior product and excellent execution.
I get the sense this is only the beginning of VWO's growth :)
I've used Visual Website Optimizer for a few weeks now, and I'm loving it. It's no wonder they're doing so well. Software is easy-to-use, for coders and non-coders, and it sheds some light on A/B testing. Personally, I think their product may help make A/B testing more main stream.
Loving VWO - worth nothing that they're doing a webinar with Conversion Voodoo and GazeHawk this Thursday ->
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/landing-pages-free/ ↗
I know of this company because of the great articles they publish about A/B testing, I guess this proves that when you produce good content it can help drive business! Congratulations, keep up the good work :D
I'm (founder of Visual Website Optimizer) on HN. In case any one has any questions, comments, or suggestions please shoot!
(BTW: the number of users figure is closer to 5000 now!)