Photo credit: Malik Earnest
This is not a new story. At least, not the first part of it.
About two months ago, the company I had founded, Synup had grown 4000% in a year but, we were still burning money like crazy.
It was really bugging me that we were growing so fast, adding so much more revenue, but still had to depend on external sources for growth capital. This is not how truly strong businesses are built, at least not in B2B SaaS.
We had two options — give up on trying to get profitable and raise more money. Or, do the logical thing, get cash-flow positive.
I needed to break the news
On a Friday, I brought the entire team in for a meeting and told them what had to be told. We were not going to be raising money any time soon, not because we couldn’t, because it wasn’t the right thing to do.
We needed to be cash-flow positive, otherwise, we’re yet another struggling startup dependent on handouts for survival.
I needed to take responsibility
Being unprofitable is really a founder responsibility. More so, the CEO’s responsibility. I have the title; now, I needed to play the part.
I told my team that I wouldn’t take a salary, even though I had practically zero savings and would tough it out until we got to a point where the company could afford to pay me.
Call this a moral high, taking responsibility or cliched, but this needed to be done.
There needed to be a physical reminder
It wasn’t enough to just make an announcement. There needed to be a physical reminder that drove the point into everyone’s head that we were still not where we needed to be. It had to be something that people couldn’t miss.
So, I offered not to shave. At least until we reached the point of breakeven.
It was so friggin’ hard
Everyone had to make sacrifices, work 2x harder and we had to cut costs. But, we did it.
We could no longer afford “breathing room”; we had to be shipping, selling and busting balls everyday.
We became cash-flow positive this month and doubled revenue
My advice to fellow entrepreneurs
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