Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Startup with a Paycheck to Exit: Jay Perkins, Co-founder of Kettlebell Kings (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: How long from the point you started did it take you to get to $1 million? How long did it take you to get to $5 million?

Jay Perkins: A million would have been in our fourth year. We did $60,000 in our first year, $270,000 in our second year, and $750,000 the next year. Then $1.5 million in the fourth year. We probably could have gotten there sooner, but we were hindered by the things I mentioned. It was into our 7th or 8th year that we got to $5.5 million.

Sramana Mitra: What year was that when you reached $5 million?

Featured Videos

Catching Up On Readings: VR Headset Market 2022

This report from IDC analyzes the VR headset market, which is dominated by Meta with 90% followed by Pico, DPVR, HTC, and iQIYI. For this week’s posts, click on the paragraph links.

Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Startup with a Paycheck to Exit: Jay Perkins, Co-founder of Kettlebell Kings (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: At what point did you plug Kabbage into your financing process?

Jay Perkins: That was probably about four or five years in.

Sramana Mitra: So for four years, you operated as a fully-bootstrapped company?

Jay Perkins: Yes, it was tough. We’d be out of the most popular SKUs for four to five months at a time. One, we didn’t have any historical data for projecting them. Two, we were growing. What data we did have doesn’t necessarily apply to the future. It took a while for us to even out that process.

Video FAQs

Colors: Violet Fields I

I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Violet Fields I

Violet Fields I | Sramana Mitra, 2020 | Watercolor, Pastel, Brush Pen | 9  x 12, On Paper

July 7 – 582nd 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable for Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are invited to the 582nd FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, July 7, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST.

If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.

You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!

581st Roundtable Recording on June 30, 2022

In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

Roundtable Recap: June 30 – Capital Intensive Ventures Have a Hard Time Getting Off the Ground

During this week’s roundtable, Kasie Hills from Knoxville, Iowa, pitched Hybrid Health Properties, a largely brick and mortar venture concept that requires a lot of capital to get off the ground.

You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:

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Bootstrapping an E-Commerce Startup with a Paycheck to Exit: Jay Perkins, Co-founder of Kettlebell Kings (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: What did you do? You said you started a company on the BigCommerce platform?

Jay Perkins: I started a business called Kettlebell Kings while I was still employed at BigCommerce. Kettlebells are basically fitness equipment. Along with my co-founders, we would hold meetings for a year and a half leading up to when we formally launched. We knew we wanted to start a business.

We were like-minded, but we didn’t know what we wanted to sell. We would kick around ideas. We eventually decided on kettlebells. There just weren’t a lot of companies focused on building a product and lifestyle brand. We just went for it.