How we're bootstrapping
Hey there! Fortunately, we're currently in the position that we can grow our user base organically with just a few thousand euros overhead costs (salaries & rent). A month ago, we decided that we want to do some bootstrapping to push the day we need outside money a bit further away.
Since it's not possible to make revenue from day 1 with our consumer product, we decided that we do freelance and consulting jobs to get some money in. Of course at the beginning you need to do any stuff that's available (= Wordpress), but these are our rules for bootstrapping:
- It's a field we have particular experience in (which we can charge for)
- The project expands our knowledge in a field that's interesting to our product
- It's possible to turn this knowledge into passive revenue
- I can also contribute to the freelance work, so Alex (as our only coder) can focus on #NOW as much as possible
Here's what we're doing: Since we already got some experience with chatbots for Facebook Messenger, we decided to approach companies and publishers to build some for them (which worked!). We set up a blog called Chatbot-Academy where we write about our learnings (in a not yet crowded, but potentially very big SEO space = potential for passive income), which also helps us in making our own bots better and increasing our credibility as founders. Additionally, I can contribute, because bot building is mainly about knowing the right tools and UX techniques.
Let's see how much customers we can get for this and how early we can turn it into passive revenue.
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