Advice for Beginner Entrepreneurs From a 2x $1M ARR+ Bootstrapper

In 10 years, I’ve bootstrapped $0-$1M ARR twice. And I’m about to do it a third time with rb2b.com. Here are the 6 biggest pieces of advice I’d give to ANYBODY bootstrapping their startup:
1. Spend as little money as humanly possible.
This is the single most important thing to do. I wasted so much money on so many things my first time around. I bought a phone system (WHY). I got an office (SO DUMB). I stayed in an expensive apartment in Manhattan. I bought two expensive cameras to film content (USED ONCE).
Money is your lifeblood. Be as frugal, because things are going to get unimaginably tight before you reach the other side.
2. Product-Market Fit is EVERYTHING.
If you achieve true PMF, everything will be amazing for you, and everything will seem easy. If you do not, everything will be a grind. And nothing will work like it needs to. I’ve spent many years on both sides. Until you have a product that is growing on its own by word-of-mouth, don’t do anything other than trying to make it better.
3. Learn as much as you can about marketing.
Once you have a great product, I believe the best way to grow a SaaS today is by creating a high-velocity inbound engine. The art and science of marketing is the way you make that happen. Learn offers, funnels, conversion, paid ads, organic social, being different, channels, content, and pricing.
Developing a deep understanding and intuition about marketing will serve you much better than trusting someone else to make fundamental decisions about your business.
4. Hire unreasonably slow, fire unreasonably fast.
My biggest piece of advice is don’t hire your first employee until it’s killing you. Then, wait until you are all in pain again until you hire the next one.
It’s really hard to fire people when you start out. But eventually you’ll be like the rest of us vets and the SECOND you see there isn’t a fit you will make the cut, knowing that all parties are better for it. A wise man once said, “I never regretted letting someone go, I’ve just regretted not doing it sooner.”
5. There’s no shame in starting small.
It’s tempting to be incredibly ambitious. That isn’t a problem in itself, but typically bringing substantially larger ideas to life are more complex than smaller ones and have a much higher degree of difficulty. I personally started small, and each venture has been orders of magnitude larger than the last.
6. Surround yourself with people that you trust and respect.
The reality of the game we’re playing is the odds are stacked against us. There’s a very tiny chance we’ll create huge companies, a decent chance we’ll create a “meh” company, and a really good chance that what we’re working on goes bust.
Any of those scenarios are tolerable if you are spending your days with great people. All are unbearable - even great success - if the opposite is true.
Have any questions about bootstrapping?
AMA anything in the comments 👇
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CHAPTERS
00:00 - 00:08 Intro
00:08 - 01:04 Spend as Little as Possible
01:04 - 01:23 You Don't Need an LLC
01:23 - 01:47 Think Only ONE Step Ahead
01:47 - 02:49 You Need Product Market Fit
02:49 - 03:46 Scale Efficiently With Inbound-Led Outbound
03:46 - 04:28 Hire Slow, Fire Fast
04:28 - 05:25 Start Small
05:25 - 06:01 Surround Yourself With People You Trust
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rb2b.com
Adam is the CEO / Founder of RB2B, a FREE app that allows you to identify your anonymous website visitors, then push their LinkedIn profiles to Slack in realtime. It's the ONLY legitimate way to get person-level identity. All other vendors stop at the account (or company) level.
Make Your Outbound Sales More Productive
The "Predictable Revenue" model and BDR motion as we know it is broken. Cold Email doesn't work anymore because inboxes have been ruined by automation tools. With RB2B you can focus your BDR time on higher-intent prospects by using website signals to trigger sales motions.
Discover Decision Makers Who Are on Your Website
With RB2B you can uncover which of your marketing efforts are driving what type of buyer (industry, title, etc) to your website. This allows you to figure out what people with which titles are responding to which channel and reach out to the hottest prospects with the most decision making power.
Close More Deals with Fewer Resources
Turning your attention to the bottom of the funnel will allow you to close more deals with fewer people. This means, sales cycles will shorten by 2/3, deal sizes will remain unchanged, and your salespeople will love working with you because fast-paced environments are fun and rewarding.
But is it legal?
Yes.

[@josephhomsy4722]

Great video Adam, thanks for sharing

[@retentionadam]

Glad it was helpful!

[@jason_yount]

Spot on Adam. Good video

[@retentionadam]

Thanks 👍