My story - Bootstrapped

[ncm123]

Hi All,

I'm 33 years old, married, have 2 kids. Currently based in Mumbai, India. I/my family own 2 software product companies. I got to know about this forum after reading The Millionaire Fastlane .

I have been in business for about 15-16 years. When I was about 13-14, my father's business failed. Our family was knee-deep in debt. About 4-5 lakh USD in 2005 USD. It was a very difficult time for us. I have been working full-time since then.

We started of in 2004-05 selling flash e-greeting cards to website owners. Since I had good design skills, I used to do all the designing while my brother used to write the messages and the marketing. We then started designing flash wallpapers / screensavers and selling them to website owners online.

After that we noticed that myspace was growing quite a lot and with myspace, the myspace resource sites grew a lot. So we launched a website focused on myspace comments and layouts. (Those who had used myspace would probably remember). We had a product differentiation here- all the other sites offered jpg/gifs, whereas we offered flash comments. We paid off most of our family debt with the earnings from this website.

At its peak our website used to get 4-5 lakh pageviews a day. I think this was in 2007. Then myspace started going down and facebook started rising. We shifted to making facebook apps. Managed to make some decent money in facebook. We made about 100+ mini apps in facebook and then suddenly one day facebook started clamping down and banning apps.

Around 2008, leased our first office (all of 300 sq ft). Then we started with making iPhone apps around 2010. Started with very basic apps and games. And over the years have grown our company to more than 75 employees. (Note that the salaries in India are much much lower than in western countries.)

Have learnt a lot in this time. Hiring, Firing, Building teams, Team structure, Taxation, Agreements, Leasing, Buying property, etc. I have learned mostly from books and going through other products. I feel that the time has come to make the process of learning better and learn directly from people who have done it.

One more thing. Over the years, I have figured out one thing. That whenever I have tried to do something for money, I have failed. But whenever we have built a great product, the revenue has taken care of itself.

I have joined this forum hoping to meet some great people, learn from them & share my thoughts. (PLUS improve my writing skills)

Thanks!

 

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[mishanya911]

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