Why Picxele is Bootstrapped?
Back in 2017 Entrepreneurship word wasn’t that Fancy, I didn't even know properly, that if I am starting up something that is called a Startup in the outside world.
Jumped into it in June 2017 by Starting up and doing a couple of experiments and learned a lot of things in 18 Months until December 2018 which I already shared in my previous blogs. Until I came up with an Idea to build Picxele in December 2018 and with help of my Two Friends I successfully developed the app with whatever money I earned and launched it in June 2019 out in the Market.
Just like every other College Student I thought of doing Job First and then Continuing with Picxele but decided let setup full time and I moved to Noida and started operating from the office and yes I had a person like Tushar Bhatia who is COO of Picxele along with me who stood by leaving high Paying Job and came along.
But not much capital to operate full time this was the major challenge so again I did the same thing which everyone was doing to approach investors in order to raise funds without the knowledge of raising funds. Built a deck and started approaching Investors from September 2019 and did for 3 Months until I understood that I won't be able to raise now and the feedbacks which I received are below.
- I don't have a good background in terms of studying at Top Colleges.
- You don't hold any expertise in the industry and aren't backed by any.
- The Traction is very low in order to Invest (Though we had Market Validated Product, that hardly mattered).
I felt bad after listening to such feedbacks but yet it was okay, kept operating smoothly and started scaling and a pandemic happened and did shut down the office after 1 year of operation and moved to Work From Home mode and then the real game started.
Entire 2020 and in fact entire FY2021 I never approached any Investors but in the entire 1 year we got 200000+ Users Organically on Picxele along with that we did over USD 200K+ Revenue and made good profits for the entire year until March 2021.
When I felt we have grown good again in May 2021 I decided to raise and this time things were different, we had enormous Growth and we got good Market Validation due to Pandemic as Gig Economy as a whole boomed a lot also I started doing Angel Investing in 2021 beginning along to understand how the Investors Operate and to get along the nitty-gritty.
I started approaching again I got good commitments and many showed good trust in me and Picxele and I am always thankful to them, but suddenly in August 2021, I felt that been 2 Years since I am running bootstrapped all the decisions which I took were mine be it good or bad and I am not running on Growth Treadmill which is operated by someone else.
So dropped the plan of raising and thanked all of them who gave us the commitment and passed that, in fact, all those people still help us in many different ways that's the beauty of being connected with people, few points on going bootstrapped I am listing below.
- You need not run on Growth Treadmill, rather do things as per your comfort.
- You need not worry about valuation but you need to care about profits.
- You might earn less but if you are okay with it that is the utmost happiness.
- Find good people who are gonna stay with you forever and keep adding such people as you go along the journey.
- With every next day, you need not worry about what is gonna answer to your stakeholders, you just need to think about what you are gonna answer to yourself.
I am a huge believer in that, Startups do need Capital and after Investing in 13 Startups you can sense that I am also not against it. But it's completely on founders how they are gonna do it, which route they choose along. Also keeping in mind that not all startups or products or sectors can go Bootstrapped and many require huge capital to sustain and grow for a period of time.
But for now, Picxele will remain Bootstrap for the coming year, whether I am not able to grow that rapidly but I have the satisfaction of coming this way long without any support in terms of Money.
Self Satisfaction: This is the word that makes me drive to whatever I am doing on a daily basis
