Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business with Jason Cohen
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- čas přidán 3. 12. 2019
- Starting a business is hard enough. The last thing you need to do is set up a foundation that works against you. A better approach is to take stock of your natural advantages, disadvantages, goals and needs, and "back in" to what that has to mean about your business model, pricing, market, product, approach, advertising, etc...
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Presented by Jason Cohen at MicroConf 2013.
Check out Jason’s MicroConf speakers page for more talks → microconf.com/speakers/jason-...
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I had a self-funded software business for 11 years. I started with a
Amazing and inspiring! How much revenue are you doing annually today?
I just looked you up. You’ve been industrious, to say the least. You should create a CZcams channel
Why don’t you bring VC funding, to expand your company? If you truly believe in your code, It will be beneficial in the long-run
@@Moodytootle This was around 1990-2000. I'm semi-retired now, looking for other challenges.
Can we work together
It's been 10 years since Jason gave this talk and this still makes so much sense in 2023
I started my small business with 20k savings, never went into debt, and worked a full-time job while I built it up. 6 years later I still work my full time job and get a nice payday of 100k extra a year ontop of my salary (Work maybe 15 hours a week in my small business now - Retail Cards, Toys, & Game Store) ... reinvested every dollar it made back in for 3 / 4 years and just grew my core stock level and goodwill - now launched online as well)... turns over approx 600k p/a. Don't need to turn over millions to be comfortable. Just be smart with your returns - invest, build more businesses, and PAY OFF DEBT. No debt is where you need to be.
Rock on 🤘
What business are you involved in?
This is the most practical, detailed, and most productive speech I have heard.
Jason is certainly a legend :) Thanks for watching!
It was really good o subbed bc of it
really i couldn't hardly concentrate with all the ums and uhs and hemmin and hawing. communication skills are stressed in sales for a reason.
Really?
It’s all over the place.
This deserves far more than 30,000 views. It's one
of the best videos on the startups I've ever seen.
Facts.
facts
Facts
fax
Facts
People paid money for this and I watched it for free on YT. I'm already ahead of the curve.
Thank you for watching, Chris!
Absolutely LOVE Jason. Worked for him @ WP Engine for just over 6 years and had a blast. Jason is the real deal - he means what he says when he talks about doing the right thing. Hope when he talks about his regrets, he wasn't referring to me! haha I had my moments. This man is the smartest, funniest, all-around best guy I've ever met; the single person whom I've literally thought to myself "I think the only thing I'm better at than him is being a ginger." Jason, if you see this - please don't dye your hair. Great to catch this talk, even 3 years after the fact. Miss y'all @ WPE =]
this is gem, like an easter egg on youtube - you find it, and it makes you happy
:) Thanks, Andrius!
I m gaining knowledge about saas for past 6-7 months because i wanna start it but this 1 hour video gave me more knowledge than all the 7 months combined ....... And i now know what it's like to take advice from someone who has already been in the game and did it successfully
Great! Happy to have you here.
Thanks CZcams for recommending this ❤️
this is the business education I wish was taught in schools.
Thanks for watching, King Kai.
This video is so many levels above what you see in other videos. I’m very, very grateful thank you.
I thought it was me having trouble converting thousands of followers from my social media into customers but it’s everybody 😅 this video was so informative 😅👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
The master - so clear and convincing!
A lot of these topics point to something, how the price of something isn’t what produces it’s value. We leave a lot of money on the table being to focused on having a low price as opposed to how we can structure the business to produce more cash over time
As a consumer I hate everything about this and hearing how you trick us into paying you more money for less.
As a small business entrepreneur thanks for the awesome advice.
🤣
Willing buyer, willing seller.
GOLD! Thank you Jason and MicroConf.
Thank you, Michael.
Thanks for sharing this valuable information!
This talk provided soooo much value and was very inspiring - thank you!!
Glad you liked it!
Gods, yes. This is right on my target market as well, really hits all the pain points
I have to re watch this
I have worked in marketing analytics for multiple growth startups. I agree with everything the speaker says. Many years of knowledge and potential failure saved.
This is gold mine here!
Wow!!! Bootstrap is more and more a framework to follow to create a business nowadays
Concise, easily digestible, useful, practical. Excellent talk.
That’s where I went wrong....all really smart advice. Thank you. Figuring out the next step will be challenging but I’m hopeful. “Predictable acquisition of recurring revenue with annual prepay in a good market creates a cash machine”
What did you do before annual prepay? Free trial?
What's a "good market"?
Thank you for the information!
Love every word since it has actual ideas included, wow!
Thank you! Happy to hear this 🙂
Very inspiring & informative talk!
This is a pretty straight forward presentation.
One of the best videos on this theme! Thanks :)
Thank you!
This is simply brilliant
gold.
thank you
Well done
Fantastic job! This was great stuff to hear!
Glad you liked it!
Excellent!!!!
This content is gold!
Thank you!
very very very interesting.. Thank you very much
This is THEE masterclass on how to build a money printer
Forget bootstrapping, or self-funded... how about customer funded startup!
With a MVP, you know right away whether you've found product market fit.
I mean... He said he walked away from a business idea because no one would pay him for it when he had _no_ product at all. That's customer-funded without an MVP.
Great perspective with several valuable tips. FANTASTIC !!👍
Thank you!
This is so amazing! Wow so much motivating
such talk. so amaze
Great insights!
As someone who's been navigating the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, can say it's a must-watch for everyone stepping into the startup game. It's rare to find content that gets the real deal of the startup world and offers so many practical insights
Appreciate your support!
Great content guys 💯💯💯
Thank you!
Super video! I applauded for $2.00 👏
Great for SaaS
I would try my best to follow most of his advice and make it
Love the Nine Inch Nails reference at 2 minutes :D :D
Amazing talk!
Thank you for the support!
Great. Now i only need a business!
29:15 I'm actually watching this because of the invoicing web app that I have built. 😊❤ This is good stuff
Thank you!
Too good
Everything is possible when your name is Cohen.
Great talk. The pricing part was great value thank you.
Thank you!
timestamp?
Amazing talk. When was it given? Judging by the video quality, attire, and laptops, much more than three years ago...
22:05 well, personally i find it offensive, when companies set trial at tiny durations like 7 or 14 days. Feels like I’m urged to test them quickly, when sometimes I don’t have time to expolre during a week.
Walk with your wallet. They'll soon get the message.
It's because 99% of the time you guys don't even try the product, regardless of whatever timeframe we give. Then it ties up our team with a prospect who is a tire kicker. Bad for business when you scale this across a sales team.
22:14 "...let me give you some data to back this up" *shows a line*
24:34 the double negative `not not` was confusing!
I am guessing based on the preceding context that NO, DO NOT SELL TO CONSUMERS!
there are tons of gems on the web like this .. key is to land em lol.
can you list some?
This super helpful and interesting. I wold love to know your script for your calls to the LinkedIn outreach :)
I started programming and launching startups in 2013, when this was recorded. 10 years passed and I made most of the mistakes mentioned in this talk, wish I seen it in 2013.
Amazing video
When you pump saas prices, does it apply to new customers only or existing and new customers?
They generally say on new customers, but there are definitely circumstances where you have to do it for existing. Steli Efti talks about this somewhere.
Gold
Thank you, Eamon.
3:35 One Offs Never Get Easier.
40:10 Big Market
47:36 How to Get Customers
45:40 The Squeeze
46:42 Selling Your Company
Wow! Did he say Wichita Falls! I remember being stuck in that alternate reality for a year.
FREEGAME - thank you 🙏
Thank you for watching.
Amazing talk.
Btw does the speaker talk like Elon musk or it's just my thoughts?
Amazing insights. Thanks for sharing. Can you share Erica's talk as well?
@gabrygac thanks so much 😄
Here you go: czcams.com/video/p5Yoyh90nTM/video.html
@@MicroConf came to look for this :)
7:10 customer outreach
Do you have a book 📖 out
Marketing gimmick master class
look into Marcus Frind
Already built an 8 figure business from scratch. Working on a second business now. Interested to hear your lesson.
To answer your first question yes I raised my hand!!
I dont believe you
What business are you involved in?
Wow! What an Awsome talk! Too much alpha here! Took notes furiously!
Free gold in the internet
Thanks. I so how other company sold some not working shit, but I still can't sell my product even if I spend tons time on implementation and UAT\DEMO etc.
Something Jason is much better at than me is letting go of a cool idea that won't sell. Did you catch the part where he said he decided _not_ to build a product because he couldn't convince 30-50 people to pay him $50/mo before it even existed?
Just, wow! That's a strong commitment to accepting market realities.
@@creativecraving of course. It sounds stupid. But all my time I work with B2B they never want to pay then it is startup or no real demo. My solution is always hard to implement at least 6 months just for the pilot version. And ppl around just sell bullshit services that already exist.
@@DenisDudaievDream That makes sense. And, also, many viable product categories would not be appropriate for the "self-fund" model, as he showed it.
I think he got away with it because he was able to sell to very small businesses. A large business requires conservative "rule-followers" to keep it going in the same direction. But a young or small company might need a entrepreneurial type to shift their mindset every day until something takes off and works.
The whole fan thing bts the only one who can actually accomplish this
I found gold here
Happy to hear that!
Its money machine 🎉
I take another issue with this the way he interchangeably uses customer/fan. You're not just going to call up 40 people can make 38 sales for $50/month, you'll be making upward of 400 phone calls for that provided you have a list of good leads to choose from. So where are you going to get the 400 people you need to get 40 sales? Through building a list of 400 fans. So your plan to get 150 customers requires a bare minimum of 1500 raving fans who are very likely to purchase. For most businesses that means somewhere closer to 6k-12k fans.
I think you're right that most businesses would not work this way. And those same businesses cannot easily be self-funded.
My takeaway from this talk is, if you need to call 10x the people to find your fans you either 1) don't have a clear idea of how to identify the fans before you call them, or 2) can't afford to self-fund it.
His answer to both is the same: switch to a different business model _before_ you spend time/money designing a product that can't easily find 150 customers.
Now, 😅 I have no idea whether his ideas will work for me or not! I'm just trying to understand them clearly for the moment. I'm trusting that he actually did it this way, and I see he thinks it's repeatable.
I self funded and got stocked ..
Are you views still the same about social media to gain customers, in light of the rapid growth of influencers? Social media famous is a whole different beast now.
However, I understand that it wastes time to try to build a following hoping to get customers (like yer personal anecdote), so what is SM good for? in light of self-funded SU?
For enterprise? He's 100% right. Quite honestly "nobody gives a sh*t" about you virtue signalling on LinkedIn or Twitter..."I'm changing the world through service mesh security" no one who matters - the customers(those who pay) - cares.
Honestly, building a social media brand (aka influence) _is_ a business. You could do that self-funded, but you _can't_ ask 150 people to pay you $50/mo in the first year!
Once you have one business (even social media), of course, launching a second one is easier. But then it's not a marketing channel. It's a whole other business that you have to win at before it helps with marketing your second business.
If you just want to market your business, becoming a social influencer is not a quick and cheap way to do that. It's worth doing, but not a cash machine.
Is this only for software saas ?
I would not ask Jason to comment on businesses he has no experience in. I'm sure it could work for some non-software products, but software is very flexible in how you package and communicate it to the customer, so there would be added complexity for other industries.
Imagine trying to self-fund a new medicine! All the years of research and testing before it's even approved to sell! You could set up a subscription model, though, for a medicine treating lifelong illnesses. I'm sure insurance companies but it that way so they can get discounts.
52:48
@7:00 - email template
He said he doesn’t like ads for social media. And I legit worked for multiple companies making a ridiculous return on doing ads for businesses primarily focused on social media ads and Google. That spill alone makes me not want to listen to anything else he’s saying. I don’t think he knows the process so just throws it up as “I don’t like it”
Literally thousands of businesses see great returns
4:40
This shit is so good. Very good info, Ty
Thank you, Luke!
50:00
joix
Ok if he is the WP Engine guy, I’ll listen.
how to self fund a business? live in your car for 3 years. that's what I did.
Makes me sick to see how much we focus on making money as a species
Lol! Money is so basic that it affects how we see the world. There's no getting away from it. Whenever you go to a grocery store and buy fruits which are not in season in your local climate, you're relying on the global money machine to make it happen. So much of what we take for granted requires us to take "making money" very seriously.
Money is like energy.
It is used to get work done.
You want to develop new technologies to create a better world?
You need to pay someone to work on that, you also need to pay someone to get the resources out of the ground, pay someone to refine it, pay someone to produce the stuff the scientist needs to do the job, pay someone to transport all of this etc....
And then the result is a new technology for renewable energy technology, reducing pollution.
Money is used determine value and have an easy conversion in order to do work.
What happens if we get rid of all the money? People will still have their skillset which they can use to provide a service to other people. But why should they do it without getting something in return? You gotta give them something that they need, but what if you dont have anything that they need but you need their service? If only you had something that could be exchanged into something that the other person needed....
❤❤❤❤❤❤
Thank you
Yeah, too bad this doesn't apply to producing and selling physical products.
He said wichita falls
I screwed up making a marketplace. They're absolutely are unsustainable
What was your niche? Do you think niche matters?