Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: RJ Metrics CEO Robert Moore (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: During that first 18 months, did you figure out that e-commerce was going to be your top segment?

Robert Moore: We did. E-commerce is a really good fit for what we can do because customers tend to come back and buy more than once. We always say that the best customers for us are people that sell pet food because every single month you buy more pet food. I think my co-founder tried to sell pooltables.com four different times and we always failed. The reason is when someone buys a pool table, they don’t come back and buy another pool table next month.

A lot of our analysis is around customer retention, customer lifetime value, repeat purchase rates, and cohort analysis. All that stuff becomes more relevant as people become higher and higher frequency buyers. E-commerce is just really a slam-dunk for that. >>>

Bootstrapping an Education Company: Tod Browndorf, CEO of Coggno (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

Tod has built an interesting online education company focused on specific niche course types. Read on to learn more.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal journey. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Tod Browndorf: Wow! We’re really going way back. I’m originally from the east coast. I was born in South Carolina but was raised in New York and New Jersey for most of my life. I lost my father when I was 10 and a half years old. I started working very early in life. He was in the manufacturing business. I started working early through school. I travelled the world pretty extensively. I lived in Australia for quite a while. I lived in the Middle East and eventually started my career in Finance. I started off as a trader on Wall Street, then later here in San Francisco.

Sramana Mitra: What did you do for school? >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: RJ Metrics CEO Robert Moore (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: You got some little bits and pieces of revenues and customer validation going. What’s the next major milestone?

Robert Moore: I mentioned that we were working out of my attic. What I didn’t mention is we didn’t have any air-conditioning in that attic. We started in October 2008. It was all well and good until about June of 2009 when it was 110 degrees. We really needed an office that we could work out of. At that time, we were probably bringing in something like $600 per month in monthly recurring revenue. We looked around and found an office nearby in Camden, Jersey that we could afford. We took that. That really was our first real recurring expense.

It was at this moment when a fire was lit within us and we started to realize, “If we are able to sell this to 10 companies at this price, we ought to be able to sell it to a hundred.” We started getting more aggressive about sales. I started spending an increasing amount of energy working on customer development and customer success, and making sure that our existing customers were happy and were referring us business. That’s when we started to see this snowball network effect. That was the network effect of having really happy customers. That allowed us to grow to the point where we could afford to start hiring employees. >>>

Bootstrapping to $27 Million from Arizona: Jeremy Young, CEO of Tanga (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Given that you know nothing about me and you’re showing me something that doesn’t work for me at all, how do you take a prospect like me and turn me into somebody who can actually find useful things on your site?

Jeremy Young: You would have to give us your email address and create an account. The way we’re doing it is through our proprietary engine. It is our strategic focus for the year and you’re going to see some amazing things come out of it over 2016.

Sramana Mitra: Why, as somebody landing on your site, would I want to give you my email address?

Jeremy Young: A lot of our traffic comes from affiliates and partners that are pushing you to a specific deal. When you come, you are already looking for those particular deals and you want to buy it. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: RJ Metrics CEO Robert Moore (Part 2)

Sramana Mitra: I presume you guys started the company with your own money?

Robert Moore: We did. It was not a lot of money. It was about $10,000 in total between the two of us.

Sramana Mitra: Who built the software? Who wrote the code?

Robert Moore: I wrote the original version in my attic. We didn’t have enough money to stay in New York. For the first nine months of the company, we ran it out of my attic. I coded all day, everyday, and Jake was making pre-sales.

Sramana Mitra: You were working off of your own experience and you understood  the problem at a pretty visceral level, but you still needed some anchor customers to get going with. Who were those? >>>

Bootstrapping to $27 Million from Arizona: Jeremy Young, CEO of Tanga (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: There is a company that we have done a case study on in Utah called Steals.com that’s in the baby product category and that does one deal a day.

Jeremy Young: Exactly. This was before any of those companies existed. We’ve been doing this for almost 10 years now.

Sramana Mitra: When you started this, did you have the partnership with the other website right from the beginning?

Jeremy Young: Yes.

Sramana Mitra: That was your primary customer acquisition strategy?

Jeremy Young: Correct. >>>

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later: RJ Metrics CEO Robert Moore (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page. 

True to the 1M/1M mantra, here is yet another story of a high-growth SaaS company that was bootstrapped first, and then has gone on to raise $22 million.

Sramana Mitra: Let’s start at the very beginning of your personal story. Where are you from? Where were you born, raised, and in what kind of background?

Robert Moore: I was born in Annapolis, Maryland but actually grew up and spent the majority of my childhood in a town called Glassboro, New Jersey, which is in southern New Jersey. My journey really begins in high school where I started my first business and really fell in love with entrepreneurship. Everything grew out of that.

Sramana Mitra: Did you go to college or did you start your business right out of high school? >>>

Bootstrapping to $27 Million from Arizona: Jeremy Young, CEO of Tanga (Part 5)

Jeremy Young: The second company was called Uberplay. That was a company that was going to take the best games out of Europe and trying to get the license for English-speaking markets, produce these games in China or Europe, and distribute them in the United States. We went over there and signed a lot of contracts. We produced 50 different SKUs. Some of these games were in Game of the Year in Germany. It sold millions of copies over there and we had the rights for the American market.

I went to Toy Fair and tried to get distribution. When you go to a Walmart and say, “This game has sold two million copies in the past year in Germany. We want you to put it on your shelf.” They’ll say, “That’s great, but you’re going to bring in 5,000 copies of this game. It’s going to sell for 10% through in one week or you’re going to take them all back. We want a million dollars worth of advertising expense to put towards this.”

I was being a little naive thinking that I had this great product that would resonate with everyone because it resonated well with Europe. With our distribution channels, they were not open for new products. You had to pay to play. I decided to try through online and social media. We were growing and it was selling, but it was super hard to make any money. >>>