Money, pricing & model

Your business model, what to charge, and whether the numbers work.

What founders use for money, pricing & model, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. Before you spend down your cushion on growth, you need to know how long it takes to earn that money back, and this is the... The SaaS CFO Article · About a 10 minute read How I Calculate the CAC Payback Period Ben Murray
  2. Walling built and sold bootstrapped companies (including Drip) and has backed hundreds more through TinySeed, so this is... SaaS Playbook (Rob Walling) Book · About 200 pages The SaaS Playbook: Build a Multimillion-Dollar Startup Without Venture Capital Rob Walling
  3. This is a founder writing honestly after quitting too early, burning 18 months and his savings, then going back to a job and... Indie Hackers Essay · ~10 min read Startup lesson learned: Don't quit your job before there is interest in your product Eddie Forson
  4. Griffith bootstrapped ClickMinded to over 40,000 dollars a month while making the slow move from side project to full time, and... Indie Hackers Podcast Podcast · ~60 min Indie Hackers #112: From Side Project to Full-Time Founder with Tommy Griffith of ClickMinded Courtland Allen (Indie Hackers)
  5. This is the most concrete, no-fluff answer we found to the actual mechanics question: how much do I give up to get a customer... SaaStr Article · Short read, about 6 to 8 minutes Dear SaaStr: What's a Reasonable Discount for an Annual Contract? How About a 3-Year Contract? Jason Lemkin
  6. This is the definitive book on funding growth from customer cash instead of your savings or an investor, and it names the five... Wiley Book · Full-length book, about 320 pages The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance, or Grow Your Company with Your Customers' Cash John Mullins
  7. This is the practical companion to the staying-small question: it replaces gut feel with concrete triggers for when a hire is... Startup Rally Article · about a 10 minute read First Hires in a Bootstrapped Startup: A Cashflow Guide Startup Rally
  8. This is the clearest proof case that a serious software company can be built away from the big startup hubs: a 150-person team... Inc42 Article · ~8 min read How Zoho Aims To Put Tenkasi On The Map With Zoho Desk, A Product Built In The Downtown Of Nowhere Shweta Modgil, Inc42
  9. A first-person founder account of building Zoho from rural India, outside the traditional urban centers, while staying private,... CXOTalk Podcast · ~45 min listen Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu on Social Impact and Business Purpose (CXOTalk #842) Michael Krigsman (CXOTalk), with Sridhar Vembu
  10. If you are building from an Indian base and selling worldwide, this is a practical, India-registered way to take card and... Razorpay Tool · Product page plus docs Accept International Payments for Global Business (Razorpay) Razorpay
  11. Shalin Jain built HappyFox from India with a small team, went after global customers, and grew it to roughly 20M dollars in ARR... Practical Founders Podcast Podcast Bootstrapped Founder Shalin Jain of HappyFox on Building from India and Serving Global Customers Greg Head (host), Shalin Jain (guest)
  12. This is the clearest read on why a rupee of Indian revenue and a dollar of US revenue are not the same size, pulling together... Monetizely Article Regional vs Global SaaS Pricing: A Strategic Approach to Pricing Optimization Monetizely
  13. The margin leak most bootstrapped founders never see coming is their own infrastructure bill, and this is the essay that put a... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · About a 15 minute read The Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar Paradox Sarah Wang and Martin Casado
  14. Every one-off custom feature you say yes to is margin you spend building something one customer wants and everyone else pays to... Medium Article · About a 7 minute read How we avoid building the wrong product as a bootstrap startup Clement Bataille
  15. The infrastructure margin leak usually shows up as a bill that crept up while you were shipping, so the fix is seeing it before... vantage.sh Tool · Self-serve setup, roughly 30 minutes Vantage Vantage
  16. This is the clearest side-by-side we found of the actual menu a bootstrapped founder faces: revenue-based financing, venture... Founderpath Article · 20 min read Non-Dilutive Funding for SaaS Founders: 8 Types Compared Founderpath
  17. Jason Lemkin has funded and built enough companies to say plainly that staying revenue-funded and keeping your ownership is... SaaStr Essay · 5 min read How can companies be revenue funded and survive without venture capital? Jason Lemkin
  18. When you need a one-time cash injection without giving up equity, this is an actual India-based platform you can approach,... Recur Club Tool · Platform, application-based Recur Club (revenue-based financing and debt for Indian founders) Recur Club
  19. Most founder-salary writing either romanticizes starving yourself or only speaks to VC-backed rounds. This one pushes back on... Majd's Newsletter (Substack) Essay How much should founders pay themselves? Majd ALAILY
  20. Most advice frames a low founder salary as noble discipline. This piece makes the counter-case with real founder voices: when... Millennial Masters (Substack) Article Underpaying yourself is hurting the company Daniel Ionescu
  21. This lays out the real downstream cost of mixing personal and business money in plain terms: messy books, harder taxes, missed... Mercury Article Why you need a separate bank account for your business Mercury
  22. This is a genuinely startup-first way to open a current account in India online, with the account held by a partner bank... RazorpayX Tool RazorpayX Current Account for Businesses RazorpayX
  23. A practical, India-specific checklist of what a bank actually asks a private limited company for once you are incorporated:... IndiaFilings Article How to Open a Current Bank Account for a Private Limited Company IndiaFilings
  24. This is the sharpest short answer to the real fear behind the question: how do I not go broke funding this. Graham reframes the... paulgraham.com Essay · ~1,200 words, about a 6 minute read Ramen Profitable Paul Graham

Show the next 24

The questions

Business models explained 18

How the money actually flows.

What business model should I choose for my startup? 3 → What's the difference between SaaS, marketplace, and transactional business models? 3 → How do I make money from a free product or freemium model? 3 → How does a marketplace actually make money and solve the chicken-and-egg problem? 3 → Should I sell to businesses (B2B) or consumers (B2C)? 2 → All 18 questions in Business models explained →
Pricing & packaging 18

Charge money. Charge more. Here's how.

How do I decide how much to charge for my product? 3 → What is a value metric and why does it matter for pricing? 2 → How many pricing tiers should I have and how should I package them? 3 → Am I charging too little for my product? 3 → How do I raise prices without losing my existing customers? 3 → All 18 questions in Pricing & packaging →
Unit economics & modeling 18

Know what a customer costs and earns.

What are unit economics and why do they matter? 3 → How do I calculate CAC (customer acquisition cost) and LTV? 3 → What is a good LTV to CAC ratio? 3 → What metrics should I actually track as an early-stage SaaS founder? 3 → How do I build a simple financial model or revenue projection? 3 → All 18 questions in Unit economics & modeling →
Bootstrapping & profitability 18

Grow on customer money, keep control.

Can I really build a successful startup without raising money? 3 → How do I bootstrap a startup with little or no money? 3 → How did Zoho and Zerodha bootstrap to billion-dollar companies? 3 → How do I reach profitability (or ramen profitability) as fast as possible? 3 → Bootstrapping vs raising VC, how do I decide? 3 → All 18 questions in Bootstrapping & profitability →
Startup finance & accounting 18

Keep the books, watch the runway.

What financial basics does every founder need to understand? 2 → What is burn rate and runway, and how do I calculate them? 2 → How should I manage cash flow so my startup doesn't run out of money? 3 → Do I need an accountant and proper bookkeeping from day one? 2 → What taxes and compliance do I need to handle as an Indian startup? 1 → All 18 questions in Startup finance & accounting →
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