i'm also bootstrapping a niche consumer app, in a very similar vein as Letterboxd. I agree with what you've said here & in previous posts, but there's one big piece i feel you're missing: it's *so* hard to sustain your life while bootstrapping. Assuming you're not independently wealthy, bootstrapped founders typically have to survive for years for their app/product to take off until we can pay ourselves a living wage. I'd really love to know a couple things about the Letterboxd journey in that regard:
1- what milestones/levers allowed them to be able to pay themselves from letterboxd? (users subscribed, number of years spent building, ads/other revenue streams implemented, some combo of all?) I realize this won't be some magic fix that all startups can do, i'm just curious about their specific journey :)
2- how did they manage to pay the bills in the meantime?
3- any advice for the founders in this early stage? it's so hard!
can't wait to read the interview! Keep up the great work!
Absolutely. great point. He did an interview on Spotify a few months ago that addresses some of those points, I'll share it here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SN1ADvrrLZs0Q0OBtEk66 (TLDR: he ran a software agency and did part time work on Letterboxd until it got big enough to leave)
i'm also bootstrapping a niche consumer app, in a very similar vein as Letterboxd. I agree with what you've said here & in previous posts, but there's one big piece i feel you're missing: it's *so* hard to sustain your life while bootstrapping. Assuming you're not independently wealthy, bootstrapped founders typically have to survive for years for their app/product to take off until we can pay ourselves a living wage. I'd really love to know a couple things about the Letterboxd journey in that regard:
1- what milestones/levers allowed them to be able to pay themselves from letterboxd? (users subscribed, number of years spent building, ads/other revenue streams implemented, some combo of all?) I realize this won't be some magic fix that all startups can do, i'm just curious about their specific journey :)
2- how did they manage to pay the bills in the meantime?
3- any advice for the founders in this early stage? it's so hard!
can't wait to read the interview! Keep up the great work!
Absolutely. great point. He did an interview on Spotify a few months ago that addresses some of those points, I'll share it here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4SN1ADvrrLZs0Q0OBtEk66 (TLDR: he ran a software agency and did part time work on Letterboxd until it got big enough to leave)