How to Bootstrap a SaaS Company in 2024

For SaaS startups, 2024 is turning out to be another lean year for fundraising.

Venture capitalists invested just $36.6 billion across 3,925 deals in Q1 2024, according to Pitchbook's latest Venture Monitor report. That is down from $214 billion invested in the first quarter of 2021, the height of the pandemic boom.

Why are so many investors sitting on the sidelines? The answer is macroeconomic risks:

• Instability in Europe and the Middle East
• Continued supply chain disruptions
• The highest interest rates in two decades
• A presidential election in the United States

These complications mean that, currently, for a SaaS business to land venture funding, they need to show a clear path to profitability — ideally sooner rather than later.

Alternatively, SaaS companies can opt to bootstrap. In this blog post, we'll share some tips on how to successfully bootstrap a SaaS product in today's economic environment.

What Is Bootstrapping?

Bootstrapping refers to the process of starting and growing a business using only personal savings, initial sales revenue and internally generated funds, instead of external funding sources like VC funding or bank loans.

For SaaS startups, bootstrapping can be a strategic choice, particularly in a challenging fundraising environment like 2024.

Benefits of Running a Bootstrapped SaaS Business

One of the biggest advantages of bootstrapping is that founders retain full control over their company. There are no external investors to satisfy.

This allows for greater flexibility and clearer decision making.

Additionally, bootstrapped businesses are sometimes more creative, fiscally disciplined and more tightly aligned to customer needs than those that receive external funding. Bootstrapped businesses must generate revenue early and manage expenses carefully, working to find unique solutions to challenges rather than spend their way to growth.

This discipline can lead to a more financially sound company that grows based on actual market demand rather than investor expectations.

Is My Startup Idea A Good Candidate for Bootstrapping?

The first thing to consider is, how many gray hairs are you willing to earn in the process?

Bootstrapping demands a high tolerance for financial uncertainty and the ability to handle the pressures of self-funding. It's ideal for businesses that can be started with relatively low upfront costs. If your startup can launch a minimum viable product (MVP) without significant financial investment, it's well-suited for bootstrapping.

Another crucial aspect is the potential for early revenue. If your SaaS solution addresses a clear and pressing problem for a specific market segment, and customers are willing to pay for it right away, you are good to go.

If you're going to need years of runway in order to start generating income, it might be best to seek funding.

Tips For Launching A Bootstrapped SaaS Product That Everyone Will Tell You

Before we get into the good tips, let's cover the basic advice for bootstrappers:

• Niche down - Focus on solving a specific problem for a specific group of people (your ideal customer). You don't need to be everything to everyone. You just need to do one thing better than anyone else.
• Focus on recurring revenue - Monthly active users (MAUs) are nice, but your north star metric should be revenue, and you should build toward ways to increase recurring revenue.
• Start with one really good funnel - You cannot afford to spread yourself thin. Find where your ideal customer is, experiment on ways to reach them and use that to grow your acquisition funnel.
• Minimize overhead - Lastly, bootstrapped startups are lean. Prioritize spending on activities that drive growth and revenue.

Now that we've got the basics out of the way, let's get to the really good advice.

How to Take Your Bootstrapped SaaS to the Next Level in 2024

When the going gets tough, the tough get crafty, and in today's challenging economic environment, generative AI is turning out to be the X-factor for early stage startups.

Say hello to Archie, our AI Product Architect. 

Archie is purpose-built to automate time-consuming, repetitive tasks, and to help founders and startups take their ideas to the next level.

The way it works is simple: Input a text description of your idea, and Archie will rapidly get to work, building out fully fleshed-out requirements, specifications and designs.

Expanding Creativity and Breaking Through Writer's Block

Bootstrapping often requires a high degree of creativity to overcome resource constraints. Archie enhances your creative process by providing a structured yet flexible framework for thinking through your product.

It allows you to input broad ideas in human terms and receive detailed outputs that include user stories, acceptance criteria and more. This capability not only accelerates development but also opens up new avenues for innovation, allowing team members to collaborate and discover requirements or features they might've initially missed. 

Accelerating Development

Archie automates much of the initial, resource-intensive groundwork involved with product development.

From generating full requirements to designing application architecture, Archie streamlines the development process. This automation ensures that your engineering team has clear and comprehensive documentation, reducing the likelihood of errors and delays.

With Archie, you can shorten development cycles and bring your product to market faster, giving you a competitive edge.

Archie is free to get started. Try it out today.

Summing It Up

The pandemic-era venture investment boom times are over, and to successfully launch a SaaS product today, founders need to focus on profitability.

This can make bootstrapping a great option if a founder has the magic combination of internal funding, a straightforward MVP and the nerves to handle it. The generative AI revolution has enabled founders, product managers and engineers to reach unforeseen levels of productivity, which can be extremely valuable for lean SaaS companies.

Next Steps

• Give Archie a spin
• Read more about how we made Archie in our product docs