The newsletter: only when there is something to say
I have one rule for the newsletter: if I wouldn't tell it to a friend, it doesn't go out. That's why some months nothing goes out.
Leer más →Foxnice: €300 and still no outside money
Every few months someone asks me when we're going to raise. This is the long answer, including what not raising has cost us.
Every few months someone asks me the same question.
"So when are you going to raise?"
They mean it kindly. The way people ask when you're getting married. Assuming it's the natural next step and you're just running late.
The short answer is I don't know. The long one is this.
€300 and a partner
Yeray and I started Foxnice with €300. It's not a marketing number. It's what we had.
Since then, not a single euro from investors. Every step has been paid for by a client. The client pays for the work. The work pays for the studio. The studio pays for the next thing we want to build.
That's how PagoCRM and the booking engine were born: with the hours left over from client projects. And a few hours that weren't left over at all.
What no outside money costs
It sounds great in one sentence. Day to day, it's less great.
It means that when a club wanted our platform but was waiting for a grant that could take a year, we ended up becoming the grant. Work done upfront that you only get back if the client stays.
It means that when we saw the Kit Digital was eating our focus, we quit after collecting 4.6 % in 22 months. There was no cushion to keep waiting.
It means one day you look at the office, do the maths and put it all in a storage unit.
And it means being wrong with your own money. Which hurts more. But teaches faster.
A funding round doesn't buy you time. It starts a clock.
What it buys us
In exchange, nobody else gets a vote.
We can say no to a client who doesn't fit. To a feature that would shine in a demo and nobody would use. To a deadline that only exists so someone can show a chart in a meeting.
We can take our time. Growing slowly isn't a strategy that sells well on LinkedIn, but it has an advantage nobody mentions: you can be wrong without explaining yourself to anyone except your partner.
Client money is patient money. It doesn't ask you to 3x this year. It asks you to make sure what you sell works on Monday.
So, never?
I'm not a "never" person. If one day there's something that can only be built with outside money, we'll think about it. Calmly, which is how we think about everything.
But so far we haven't needed it. And every month we don't need it is a month the company is still ours.
So when someone asks when we're going to raise, my honest answer is another question.
What for?