Expensive SaaStr: What’s the most inspiring bootstrapped SaaS on the market?
Atlassian is price $40B right now, fairly darn spectacular.
The founders owned 78% at IPO. Very spectacular.
The combo?
Totally epic pic.twitter.com/oN5vm3y4Ii
— Jason ✨Be Form✨ Lemkin (@jasonlk) April 19, 2023
In SaaS, I nominate 3 for The Greatest Bootstrappers Ever.
First, Atlassian. Whereas finally it did elevate $100m in secondary, it by no means raised any “major” capital in any respect. The founders owned 78% at IPO, and right now Atlassian is price $40B. The last word win right here.
Second, Mailchimp. The founders by no means offered a share, major or secondary, and offered to Intuit for a surprising $12 Billion (!). The #1 most profitable 100% self-serve bootstrapped SaaS story on the market. Wow.
Third, Qualtrics. Like Atlassian, it later raised some secondary capital, however by no means offered any shares instantly. Like Atlassian, it took longer too as a result of it was bootstrapped. However Qualtrics was then acquired for $8 Billion by SAP simply earlier than its IPO … after which IPO’d later once more for $12B … and now could be going non-public once more.
Now having stated all this, whereas I’m struggling to seek out the precise Tweet, a methods again Michael-Cannon Brooks, co-CEO of Atlassian, responded to a tweet we did on bootstrapping. He stated it most likely wouldn’t have labored for them right now. The market right now is simply too aggressive, and so they wouldn’t have had sufficient sufficient time within the early days. That’s all the time one thing to consider when you have the choice to bootstrap or not. Will it get you there sooner? And can that matter? Bootstrapping isn’t straightforward. None of it’s. But it surely’s simpler in much less aggressive classes. Since you’ll want extra time.
A associated submit right here:
Printed on April 25, 2023
