

How we built BeSnappy.com for $317,000 - craigkerstiens
http://ianlandsman.com/2013/01/09/how-we-built-besnappy-for-317000

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kixxauth
The decision to raise money from investors is becoming an increasingly complex
one. There's angels, funds doing seed rounds, funds doing series A and B,
crowdfunding, Kickstarter, bootstrapping and then raising money to scale, et
al.

Or simply bootstrapping.

It's fascinating to see UserScape bootstrap itself to the point where it can
seed fund its own products. That's an amazing place to be at and something to
really aspire too.

But then, with seed money you can quit your job, focus on your product without
freelancing as a distraction, and keep your business top of mind without
financial pressures. But you better be damn sure that you're hitting high
growth rates and get back on the roadshow to raise your series A. So there's
that too.

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ianlandsman1
Yeah, it's a tough call. Once you get on the funding train you kinda have to
stay on it. They expect you to spend the money which means you're going to
have high expenses which means you're probably going to need more money than
your business will generate early on.

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vivekajayshah
This is a very insightful article - BUT - you're paying way too much for
health insurance.

Shoot me an email (contact info in profile) or check out
<http://www.simplyinsured.com> \- assuming you have 2-3 people on your team,
we can save you thousands. I'm looking at quotes right now for fantastic
insurance at around $150-$250/person.

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JesseObrien
Really cool to see how you guys are doing and what your costs are. The
services/hardware are becoming exorbitantly cheap and manpower/expertise is
becoming expensive.

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13rules
When are you launching? Any chance to get bumped up in the list? I registered
months ago...

And FWIW, Snappy >>>>> SnapReply

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ianlandsman1
It's in a limited beta now, over the next few weeks we'll be rolling out a
much wider beta so you should get a notice pretty soon.

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howradical
I'd love to see more detail on number of people for payroll and especially
healthcare, that seems SUPER expensive.

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ianlandsman1
We have 5 staff total, most of that number is 3 of us. Healthcare is high
because we pay for 100% of it and everyone is on a family plan. So cost is
around $18K/year. We all work remote so we need to use a plan that's national
which also costs more.

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ramirors
For how long this budget was?

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ianlandsman1
6-7 months, but as I said we were working on other things along the way as
well.

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aaroncray
Nice landing page bro

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ianlandsman1
Thanks!

