A founder answers

How did Sam bootstrap Butter with only $500?

Sam bootstrapped Butter as a solo founder. He taught himself to code but decided it was insane to go through that learning curve while building the whole company, so he designed the product and outsourced the development — which used up a majority of the cash he had.

— Sam Richardson, Butter (Ep 13)

The full answer

SR

Sam Richardson · Butter

EP 13 · Founder, Butter

Show notes ↗

Sam bootstrapped Butter as a solo founder. He taught himself to code but decided it was insane to go through that learning curve while building the whole company, so he designed the product and outsourced the development — which used up a majority of the cash he had.

More from this episode

That left him with about $500 to launch, which isn't much. Paid media is very scalable now, but $500 wasn't going to get him far, so he had to get creative and go hard on the organic side, building social proofing for the business, with only small moments of paid activity (mostly on socials) to bolster it. It was really the organic drive that carried the early growth.