For a software business, how long did it take to get:
- Your first $1 in revenue?
- Your first $100 in revenue?
- Your first $10,000 in revenue?
- Your first $100,000 in revenue?
Intent
Hopefully we can get a whole bunch of results that can be averaged out… That way founders have a bit of a rough guide on when they maybe should be looking to alter things. “Hey, it has taken me to eight times longer than normal to generate my first $100 of revenue, what am I doing wrong?”
My Answer
I run a custom software development business.
We did our first job for $2000, which bought the first computer.
It took 1 year to get to $100,000
it took 2 years to get to $250,000
14 years later there is $xM per year.
But we don’t sell product, we don’t have a website which waits for a sale, we don’t advertise, we didn’t do any marketing besides word of mouth for the first 3-4 years.
If your trying to get a feel for the two extremes have a listen to
- Automate my small business. These guys spin up new small ideas quickly and are profitable within 2-6 months.
- This week in startups. These people generally get funding for 2 years+ and the majority don’t try and make much money within that time, they are focused on getting a huge amount of continual traffic which can then be monitised.