Bootstrapping SaaS Startups

Rick Gregg June 27,2024 What do you think?

Current Funding Environment

Venture capital financing is the exception, not the norm, among start-ups. Investors want to be convinced you really know who your customer is. They also want to see some amount of early revenue. All before even considering an investment. 300,000 SaaS startups in North America competed for $5.4B in seed and angel investment during 2023. Less than 1% or approximately 3,000 startups received funding after dedicating countless hours over at least 12 months raising money.

Increase Your Chances for Success

The saasmvp Project is out to change all of that by leveling the playing field. Our open source Minimum Viable Product (MVP) SaaS framework lets you focus your valuable time and money on customer discovery, customer validation, and that all important early revenue generation milestone on your own without any outside investment. This approach will raise your valuation and allow you to keep more of your equity making an investment in your SaaS startup less risky. Or keep the equity yourself! What are your thoughts? I’d like to hear from you. In the meantime, keep building.

Methodology

In 2023, Crunchbase estimated there was $13.7B invested in 7,670 Venture capital funded seed and angel deals with Carta claiming that SaaS startups account for 39.2% of seed and angel capital raised. Consider the following:

• 300,000 North American angel and seed stage SaaS startups sought funding in 2023. One percent (.01) received funding. ((7,670 * .392)/.01 = 300,000)
• 3,000 North American angel and seed stage SaaS startups received funding in 2023. (300,000 * .01 = 3,000)
• $5.4B was invested in 3,000 North American angel and seed stage SaaS startups in 2023. ($13.7B * .392 = $5.4B)

SaaS Customer Discovery Begins Here

Rick Gregg June 18,2024 What do you think?

Welcome to The saasmvp Project blog. The primary objective of this blog is to show you how saasmvp can be used as a customer discovery and validation tool. Technical support issues will be discussed in the related open source repositories. This blog is about our shared experiences using saasmvp to help you accelerate your time to revenue and discover a repeatable Software as a Service (SaaS) business model. We will use the well-known business model canvas methodology developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur in their 2010 book “Business Model Generation”. I will be sharing my own customer discovery and validation experiences with you as The saasmvp Project develops. What works, what doesn’t and why. This should be a lot of fun. Let’s get out of the building!

Reading List

Rick Gregg June 18,2024 What do you think?

I have several “go to” books in my library that I have used throughout my four decades as an entrepreneur. I will refer to these books from time to time and offer my own thoughts on these books through the occasional book review. I will also use them in developing and executing a roadmap for my own saasmvp customer discovery and validation work. In order of reading, here are my recommendations:

1. Ries, Eric. The Lean Startup. Crown Publishing, 2011.
2. Osterwalder, Alex, et al. Value Proposition Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2014.
3. Nordgren, Loran and Schonthal, David. The Human Element. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2022.
4. Osterwalder, Alexander and Pigneur Yves. Business Model Generation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010.
5. Bland, David and Osterwalder, Alex. Testing Business Ideas. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2020.
6. Blank, Steve and Dorf, Bob. The Startup Owner’s Manual – The Step-by-Step Guide for Building a Great Company. K&S Ranch Press, 2012.
7. Chen, Andrew. The Cold Start Problem – How to Start and Scale Network Effects, HarperCollins Publishers, 2021.
8. Wickman, Gino. Traction – Get a Grip on Your Business. BenBella Books, Inc., 2011.
9. Moore, Geoffrey A. Crossing The Chasm – Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers. HarperBusiness, 1991.
10. Feld, Brad and Mendelson, Jason. Venture Deals – Be Smarter than your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2019.

What books and teachings do you rely upon? Let me know in the comments. I’ll take a look and give you my thoughts.