How to Build a Startup Without Funding by Pieter Levels @dojobalicoworking3342@ Dojo Bali

The popular narrative of startups is outdated. You don't need venture capital to build a startup. You do need a DIY attitude, a lot of persistence and become a generalist who can learn new skills like coding, design and marketing quickly. This way of building a startup is called bootstrapping and it's the coolest way to do it I think. The best thing is you don't need to rub up to venture capitalists to get funding, you keep ownership of your company and you have higher odds to make more money.

The 7 stages of bootstrapping a startup:

00:00 Intro
6:58💡 Idea
11:58 🛠 Build
14:50 🚀 Launch
20:15 🌱 Grow
26:18 💰 Monetize
33:20 🤖 Automate
35:48 🚪 Exit

ABOUT ME

After I was quickly going broke in 2014, I started building "12 startups in 12 months" which got a lot of attention and forced me to ship a new app every month.

Most of those apps didn't become successful, but some did: Nomad List became a real startup with millions of monthly users, multiple acquisition offers, $25,000 to $40,000/month in revenue, while having a real cultural impact of getting tens of thousands of people to travel and work remotely.

Remote OK started as a basic jobs board for remote workers, and grew out to now be the highest traffic generating remote careers platform with about $30,000 to $70,000/month revenue in job posts.

My total revenue over all my projects together has now surpassed $100,000/month and is growing at 1.76x per year. I share this to make the point again: it's possible to bootstrap a company without venture capital and all the bullshit that comes with it.

I also won Product Hunt's Maker of the Year in 2016 and 2018, won Product Hunt's Side Project of the Year in 2018, am the #1 most upvoted Product Hunt maker, got my apps multiple times to #1 on Hacker News and I was on the frontpage of Reddit twice (with Nomad List and Hoodmaps).

I don't have the keys to success, so I can only tell you what worked for me. A few principles I hold is that I don't take external funding, I do everything myself, I mostly don't really hire, I automate a lot which means I have lots of robots working for me 24/7, I like transparency and I hate business bullshit. That means I share my revenue, share the problems I have and the successes when things do work. This presentation is pretty much that!

EVENT PAGE:

CREDITS
📷 Camera: Marc-Antoine Fonne
😃 Audience: Andrey Azimov, Clare Harrison, Petr Suska + more

Portuguese (Brazil) subtitles by Eric Vieira @eric_vieira

[CodingPhase]

Love you bro... you changed my life by following you I've been able to be 100% remote and have multiple online business. Now making 16k to 21k per month by following what you been doing over the years.

[vladsunseducer]

This is how "how to make money online" videos should be on YT. No ads, no fluff, no bs. Clear cut and straight to the point.

[EddyVinck]

This is the video that opened my eyes 6 years ago. I now have a bootstrapped SaaS doing $126 MRR and growing. Only took me 6 years to launch 😂 Thanks so much for the inspiration Pieter.

[tigaes]

00:10 Start
06:56 Idea
12:00 Build
14:57 Launch
20:23 Grow
26:18 Monetize
33:24 Automate
35:50 Exit

[PeterJavorkai_is_on_fire]

I'm not even counting how many times I returned to this video 😅

[bobby]

This is gold, absolute gold, no bullshit, no gimmicks, thanks Peter

[johanvanwambeke]

This quote rings alot of truth to me:
Pieter: "It's harder to scale WITH people."

Immagine training someone in your company, or best case they grew along with the company.
Then you need to change directions to stay competetive... wel good luck switching all your employees.

Also i like the burtal honesty.

[EddyVinck]

Back here again as I approach the launch of my first SaaS. I was inspired when I saw this in 2018, and the idea of trying this myself has been stuck ever since. Focused on career first, and now that I’m in a good place it’s time to build 🙌🔥

[flinskikun]

Probably one of the best video in this niche I have ever watched.

[CarlosCosta]

I think this is the only 1 hour video on YouTube that I sat through. Well done & big kudos! Keen to launch Friend Theory after seeing this!

[NckNck-puvb]

The biggest thing here is that he was able to validate an idea through Twitter with just a Google Docs.

[PatrickDey]

It is possible to build a web app with the latest tech stack and not get any users, while a web app built with a legacy tech stack can be very successful. The real differentiator is the ability to build something that users find useful to the point that they are willing to pay for it. Another important factor is the ability to market the product. The usability and visibility of a product take precedence over the underlying technology used to build it. That said, using newer technologies to build something useful comes with its own perks, including modern interface, performance, and scalability. However, at the end of the day, done is better than perfect.

[SteveOlson]

This is honestly a great vid. No bullshit, which is rare for this kind of talk.

[grkguitar]

"Most days I need to drink 2 lattes just to get some code on the paper. This robot just runs, and it doesn't sleep."

[alexinflux]

46:25 👍 That's how I started coding. Literally copy pasting stuff and seeing what it does

[Gustosales-zqrb]

6 Years later, Pieter predicted the future about robots and automation. :)

[brunobrasil]

Watched this in 2024. Thank you, Pieter.

[CathyO]

Why does this not have more views this is great

[aleattorium]

Really good content, I think you've showed me a new kind of startup: no bootstrap, because there's so much commodities on the internet (cloud, for example) and niche markets around the world. I think that's a way to really start an entrepreneur movement. This could even be a way to be a startup accelerator :-)

[NaiyoGames]

school teached me how to learn and really helped me bootstrap my carrer. But if you think doing everything alone and keep the motivation and determination is OK for you, go ahead