I have a SaaS startup in the ecommerce space; it's like Shopify but with a no-plugin approach. The storefront is open source (Vue Project + JS SDK) and available on GitHub, allowing everyone to build their storefronts and deploy them on our servers. This gives it the flexibility of Woocommerce and Wordpress. We are two founders + one employee + zero investors. I personally wrote all the code for the backend, frontend, iOS, Android app, and more so we can figure out the product side at any level. Also most of our users are agencies, primarily from North America and Europe. Our revenue comes from selling deals to agencies, freelancers, and business owners. So, the next step is making ARR.
I don't want to raise money from investors because they thought my nationality was not ok to secure funding. Therefore, I'm looking to scale without their support, and I'm curious about what startups do after their Series A or B rounds to scale their business. I'd like to understand their scaling strategies and replicate them with my available resources.
Every piece of advice or reference is worth a lot.
All customers will cost you something on the front end, even if it's just time. That time is money. How long does it take to earn enough profit to pay that back? Higher margin and lower operation cost --> faster payback period --> ability to onboard customers faster.
Stated differently: if 10M new customers walked through your door tomorrow, could you onboard and retain them immediately? Probably not. Determine your new customer flow rate and gear your sales + advertising activities to hit that rate. Then you can add more business capacity and continue to scale.
One more thought: as you scale, how can you lower your employee cost? People talk about remote hiring, and that's an option, but there's also another shortcut: mission. People will take less money for the same work if they're excited about the mission. Mission IS compensation. What makes a good mission? Maybe you're focused on minority-owned small businesses. Maybe you're offering a chance for developers from non-traditional backgrounds to grow. Maybe you employ ex-cons. Maybe you're trying to launch a rocket to Mars. Whatever it is, find the GENUINE thing that makes your story super unique and use that to attract good employees for less cash.
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