My response to a post that appeared on Hacker News and was promoted on Indie Hackers.

For your typical solo founder in their 30s, their odds of dying at any point over the next 10 years is something like 0.2%. And short of them dying, their business isn’t going anywhere because keeping a SaaS startup online doesn’t cost anything — if you have the skills to do it yourself.

Whereas the odds of a venture backed startup shutting down at any point over the next ten years is something like 30%.

So from a risk perspective, it’s literally over 100x more risky to use a software product made by a venture backed company than one from a solo founder.

On all of my sales calls, I tell people that I’m bootstrapped and that I’m going to charge them extra so that I can reduce the risk to their business by staying bootstrapped, and I have yet to run into anyone who doesn’t seem satisfied by that pricing strategy.

Hacker News post by Alex Krupp, Founder of FWD:Everyone

Good point Alex makes. Wonder where the 30% came from? Whilst I have not kept a list myself, I’ve seen SaaS products drastically change after acquisitions. Some SaaS products under new ownerships stop serving small customers altogether and focus on large enterprises. This is as much a risk as a shutdown.

In terms of Bootstrapped SaaS, what I have noticed since 2004 is that bootstrapped does not mean the companies are operated by a single person. As a bootstrapped SaaS founder, you can start building a team by spending your revenues on hiring teammates. By doing so, you reduce the risk for your customers.

Until you have the revenue to hire talent, you can also bring on free talent SkilledUp Life.

I have also been building subscription-based tech products since 2004 with many failures. I bootstrapped them all and continue to do so. The biggest issue I have had during all these years is the lack of capital to build teams. I’m solving my own problem through SkilledUp Life. My team now includes 2 salaried staff and about 20+ Volunteers.

I just changed pricing by adding further tiers and getting rid of tiers that were meant for slightly larger tech startups. I want to focus more and more on the underdog and become a reliable strategic partner for them, and not just a free talent provider.

SkilledUp Life is one solution. But there are many ways to de-risk a bootstrapped SaaS business.