
How Holidify Bounced Back to Hit 5M Users - akashindya
https://medium.com/@rohitshroff/how-holidify-bootstrapped-and-bounced-back-to-hit-5-million-monthly-users-after-almost-shutting-f29fdcd65c9a
======
lubujackson
My first company went through a similarly deep "trough of sorrow." We launched
riiiight before the first dotcom crash, limped along for a year or two
(product doing well, revenue not so much) then us founders went out and got
Real Jobs. But the product kept chugging along and a few years later we came
back with some monetization ideas and things took off for real, leading to an
acquisition almost 10 years after starting it.

I think the moral is that if you have a working product with no revenue, it
may find a way if you can give it enough space and time. Some products need a
lot effort/money to keep going, but if your company is built like a cockroach
and you have a product that people use, don't shut it down or throw it to the
wolves unless you absolutely have to. You don't hear a lot about these
phoenix-like companies, but it's good to know that the end isn't always
necessarily the end.

~~~
shroffrohit
Thank you for sharing this. This makes so much sense and I also feel that this
type of sustainability wouldn't have been possible for all kinds of
products/companies.

------
aliswe
To all who are wondering how much a "lakh" is, it's a word in the indian
subcontinent meaning 100000.

~~~
shroffrohit
Thank you for the explanation :) I had written this piece keeping Indian
audience in mind. Glad it has reached here. I have now updated the article and
added figures in USD and international number system :)

~~~
aliswe
No problem. Cool you're in here replying BTW. Didn't realise you wrote the
article. Good job and very nice to hear these kinds of success stories!

I'm still getting used to counting in Lakh, in Dubai people sometimes say 5
lakh this, 6 lakh that. Even to me as a swede. Then you guys have krore, I
dunno what else.

In arabic they also have some old units being used in some countries, like
faddaan, and I forget another one I just heard...

Edit: Also, you guys use different decimal points for Lakh I think. like 30
lakh is 30,00,000 I think. Saw it on some bank website.

------
ai_ia
Congratulations on bouncing back. There were a lot of good points to learn.

I wish you best for the future.

~~~
shroffrohit
Thank you! :)

