...When your business throws off $1500/mo (without salaries), that’s not the case. If you’ve been at this for a year, clearly next month won’t be $5000, (unless it's an internet business, where a single good source of publicity can easily bring you from 500 from x paying customers to 5000 from 10x as many) which means even in the sense that it’s “kicking off cash” it’s not sustainable in the long-term, (unless, like all Internet companies, costs are largely fixed or at the least certainly don't grow linearly with number of paying customers) not defensible in the market, not supporting even one human being in that effort, etc.. (unless it's an Internet business that can go from paying you 200 per month to 2000 per month without you so much as being sure where all these customers came from, how they heard about you.)
Therefore, in the normal sense of the phrase “profitable business,” it’s not. (unless you mean "profitable business" as a person normally means it when it comes to a startup).
So now that I’ve perhaps unfairly ridiculed you, (now that the author has ridiculed himself) let’s just recognize what’s really going on, because it’s wonderful and amazing and fantastic and exciting: (since it's not descriptive of most projects)
You’re building a business! (your project is cash-flow positive.) Sure it’s just begun, sure it might need a kick in the ass, sure it might be struggling, sure sure sure, so what? You and every other little new business. You and every other bootstrapper who by very definition doesn’t explode out of the blocks because you’re doing it part-time and with no cash. (that's not anyone's definition. you can explode out of the blocks or you can languish.) This is exactly what you’d expect it would do, even if you’re actually the next 37signals. (unless your expectation is different.)
That’s exactly what my company WP Engine looked like for the first 9 months. Now we’re making millions of dollars, employ 20 people, growing at 15%/mo, etc.. But we started just like that — slowly, and not profitable. (sounds like you did it from 50-100k in savings or seed capital, which puts you squarely in the type 1 bracket.)
Same with my previous company Smart Bear — it took 2.5 years before I could even hire one employee, and even then it was 1/4 of the salary he deserved (and later ended up making). Eventually we, too, made millions of dollars a year — in profit! — but not for years. (during those years I bet the net cash flow ever had reached -20k easily. all in direct costs.)
In other words, there’s nothing strange or bad here. It’s just not “profitable from day one.” Stop saying that. (unless you're cash-flow positive from day one, which is a different type of internet project).
Dispense with the feather-fluffing and get to what is — the strengths you have, the challenges you want to overcome, the resources at your disposal. (And if you've proven a scalable, repeatable business model that pays for its own hosting and direct expenses other than the time to develop it, I suppose you shouldn't boast about that fact? After all, it's not like if a web service is developed in 100 hours, you can keep running it without redevolping it from scratch every month, as though you'd just lost all your backups.)
And then set your mind and goals on making that sucker profitable for real! (turn your positive cashflow into a sizeable source of revenue. which nobody assumes you have if you mention the former.)
P.S. Need help figuring out how to do that? Go here to learn about the Smart Bear Live podcast where I’ll help you one-on-one, or email me to see whether I can turn your question into a blog post. (step 1: start with some money to burn.)
Therefore, in the normal sense of the phrase “profitable business,” it’s not. (unless you mean "profitable business" as a person normally means it when it comes to a startup).
So now that I’ve perhaps unfairly ridiculed you, (now that the author has ridiculed himself) let’s just recognize what’s really going on, because it’s wonderful and amazing and fantastic and exciting: (since it's not descriptive of most projects)
You’re building a business! (your project is cash-flow positive.) Sure it’s just begun, sure it might need a kick in the ass, sure it might be struggling, sure sure sure, so what? You and every other little new business. You and every other bootstrapper who by very definition doesn’t explode out of the blocks because you’re doing it part-time and with no cash. (that's not anyone's definition. you can explode out of the blocks or you can languish.) This is exactly what you’d expect it would do, even if you’re actually the next 37signals. (unless your expectation is different.)
That’s exactly what my company WP Engine looked like for the first 9 months. Now we’re making millions of dollars, employ 20 people, growing at 15%/mo, etc.. But we started just like that — slowly, and not profitable. (sounds like you did it from 50-100k in savings or seed capital, which puts you squarely in the type 1 bracket.)
Same with my previous company Smart Bear — it took 2.5 years before I could even hire one employee, and even then it was 1/4 of the salary he deserved (and later ended up making). Eventually we, too, made millions of dollars a year — in profit! — but not for years. (during those years I bet the net cash flow ever had reached -20k easily. all in direct costs.)
In other words, there’s nothing strange or bad here. It’s just not “profitable from day one.” Stop saying that. (unless you're cash-flow positive from day one, which is a different type of internet project).
Dispense with the feather-fluffing and get to what is — the strengths you have, the challenges you want to overcome, the resources at your disposal. (And if you've proven a scalable, repeatable business model that pays for its own hosting and direct expenses other than the time to develop it, I suppose you shouldn't boast about that fact? After all, it's not like if a web service is developed in 100 hours, you can keep running it without redevolping it from scratch every month, as though you'd just lost all your backups.)
And then set your mind and goals on making that sucker profitable for real! (turn your positive cashflow into a sizeable source of revenue. which nobody assumes you have if you mention the former.)
P.S. Need help figuring out how to do that? Go here to learn about the Smart Bear Live podcast where I’ll help you one-on-one, or email me to see whether I can turn your question into a blog post. (step 1: start with some money to burn.)