Bootstrapping from Canada: FluidWare Co-CEO Aydin Mirzaee (Part 7)

Sramana: How much money have you raised to get where you are today?

Aydin Mirzaee: We have not raised any investment money. From time to time we have applied and won some government grants, but nothing major. We are basically a bootstrapped company. The co-founders did not take money for the first two years, and the third year we had a whopping salary of $24,000.

Sramana: What was the ramp rate like?

Aydin Mirzaee: It took about five years to get to $5 million. A lot of it is based on traction. The first year we were off building an anti-social network, which we ultimately had to scrap. We launched FluidSurveys in beta mode at the end of 2009. We ramped fairly quickly afterwards.

Sramana: What you are describing is a four-year period to hit $5 million. I think that is a good pace.

Aydin Mirzaee: The other thing to keep in mind is that we did not have a development team that was full time. Two of our co-founders did not graduate until 2010, so we really only had their time during summers for a while. I used to drive from Ottawa to Montreal every single Friday after work to get out there and work with them every weekend. They made a lot of sacrifices, which is required to bootstrap a company.

Sramana: Unless you have a team like that, you won’t make it.

Aydin Mirzaee: That’s true. The most interesting stories I have to talk about are about those first two years. I don’t know that I would ever go back and do another bootstrapped startup. I remember the finance guy telling us we were short $5,000 payroll two days before payroll was due. It is tough.

Sramana: I don’t think people have the stomach to do two bootstrapped startups. Hopefully the first one is successful, then they have the ability to self-finance the second.

Aydin Mirzaee: It is a very stressful process. I remember when I left the job at Nortel and it really changed the way I lived. It was a cultural difference. My parents were disappointed. They did not think I had enough experience. I did not speak to my dad for a couple of months because he was so disappointed for me. It took a while for them to see that what we were doing was real. You really have to want to do it. The only question is how long it will take.

Sramana: There are tremendous amounts of skepticism in life. Your support groups will have different tolerance for risk. There is also the question of prestige. In Silicon Valley startups are prestigious, big companies are not. In most cases that is not true. Big companies are safe and stable. People wonder what you are doing with a startup.

Aydin Mirzaee: The first two years of a startup are terrible. It is all about failure. You look around and your friends are getting masters, PhDs and are getting promoted at work. Everyone you went to school with is having a life that is progressing, and you feel like you are left behind. You really start to question yourself. The good thing is that our core founders were all very supportive. My co-founder is 30 years older than I am and ran a successful company. He had been there and done that. We made a good team.

Sramana: Great! It is wonderful that you have made it work. Good luck with the ongoing process of building a company.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping from Canada: FluidWare Co-CEO Aydin Mirzaee
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