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George Spanos

Bootstraping A Software Company - One Year Review

/ 4 min read

entrepreneurship, moby it

Intro

The 3rd of February, 2024 marked my first year owning a bootstrapped software company, Moby IT. I will lay down what I’ve learned so far, mostly let it out and maybe spark some thoughts on my readers.

Financials

During this first year, I generated revenue exclusively by outsourcing. I staffed enterprise teams, and did mostly front-end work, as usual. While this is not the path that I hope my company will take, it’s what pays the bills for the time being, while I’m trying to give flesh to a greater plan.

I started my company with a rudimentary amount of 3.000 € because I had clients who were going to pay me right out of the gate.

In 2023, I generated a revenue of around 47.000 € and my expenses were about 40.000 €.

It was not an easy year financially but that was to be expected. After all, I started a company with little to no savings, based on existing clientele and it went pretty well from my point of view. However, if I want to scale this, I have to focus more on sales and networking, rather than selling myself as a contractor.

Lessons Learnt

I feel like I processed a ton of information this first year. However, I won’t take the time to write down every experience in this article. I will try to compress this knowledge into some tips that I would give to myself one year ago. So here they are:

  1. Understanding marketing is very important. When we’re speaking about the survival of a newfound company, they are more important than technical proficiency and excellence.
  2. There’s a considerable amount of time to be spent on creating a sales network. Learn where your clients reside and how to speak to them.
  3. Have a way to teach new colleagues how to work. Most people have a different taste of what professionalism means. Be ready to teach people about what you need and have patience while doing so.
  4. Narrowing your target audience and being specific is one of the most important actions when approaching marketing.
  5. Refine your Unique Value Proposition. Be confident about it. Many companies can do the job. Probably better than you. So, why you?
  6. Be consistent. Show up. Write about what you do. Get the word out. It’s never wasted time if you truly believe what you do.
  7. Software Quality is a problem beyond a certain scope. Coming from the perspective of an engineer, this is an eye-opening statement. You are considered lucky to have technical debt. Most others have gone bankrupt.

I’ve dedicated most of 2023 and probably 2024 to understanding what it means to be an entrepreneur. I want to convert myself from a successful engineer to a successful entrepreneur and I gradually understand better and better what this means.

The last point is what I would stress to myself. Understanding engineering does not directly correlate with being a good entrepreneur. It might be helpful, but it’s in no way obvious to me. I understand that running a company is a skill I have to cultivate, just as engineering is/was. However, I’ve decided that I do not picture myself as a software engineer my entire life and I value my independence more than my income’s stability and safety. I just entered my 30s so I’m willing to take that leap and try to build something that will let me work with more degrees of freedom and possibly income.

Resources

Here are some books that have reshaped my way of thinking. This list also includes some to-read:

George Spanos,

Moby IT

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