‘Your team is only 5 people?’ she smirked. We had just crossed $4.3M ARR with 47% profit margins.

She had 200 employees and a fresh $50M round.

I had a coffee in hand and a simple rule about spending money.

Guess which company is actually profitable?

The conversation happened 3 years ago and I still remember it like it were yesterday.

It went like this:

Her: “What’s your burn rate?”

Me: “We don’t have one. We’re profitable.”

Her: “Oh… but how will you scale?”

I had to laugh. Because here’s what I didn’t tell her:

While they’re optimizing for their next funding round, I’m running every expense through what I call the “Coffee Shop Test”: would I approve this cost if I was sitting in a coffee shop, looking at my personal bank account?

It’s amazing how clarity emerges when you’re spending your own money.

Some real numbers from our “small” business:

• $4.3M ARR
• 47% pure profit
• $860K revenue per employee
• Team of 5 (yes, total)

But these metrics barely came up. Instead, I got the usual:

“Have you considered raising?”

“You should really accelerate growth.”

“Don’t you want to build something bigger?”

Here’s what I’ve learned after 12 years of bootstrapping:

The best business decisions often come from having skin in the game.

When it’s your money on the line, you develop an instinct for value that no MBA program can teach.

I’m proud that every dollar we’ve earned came from customers, not pitch decks.

Every hire we’ve made was because the business demanded it, not because we had runway to burn.

The irony?

By staying lean and profitable, we have more freedom to experiment than many better-funded competitors.

No board meetings about burn rate.

No pressure to hit arbitrary growth targets.

Just the simple mandate to build something customers want to pay for.

To my fellow bootstrappers: Next time someone gives you that “oh, you’re still small?” look, remember–there’s nothing small about building a business that pays for its own growth.

It’s not about how much money you raise.

It’s about how much value you create.

And sometimes, the best growth strategy is simply asking: “Would I spend my own money on this?”

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