sorry, I was not putting as much thought into the specific numbers as you are - or into my particular phrasing - I just tried to make the numbers round, specific, and illustrative. Use different numbers by all means.
I think it's fair to say you must spend something on customer acquisition and infrastructure to service them: it's impossible to spend $50,000, get to 10k customers, and not spend another nickel but three months later you have two hundred million of them. There are a lot of variable costs and acquisition costs, even though they get factored into your total expenditure.
I mean, what fixed costs does a 3-person startup actually have? 3 times 160 hours @ $0.00 per hour, i.e. the founders' time, sure, and then what? If you get to two hundred million customers, every item in your budget is much greater. I can't think of a single service that can get those customers for free, and on a paying-for-conversions rate a few bucks seemed realistic (rounded to factor in all your variable costs broken down to customers).
I think though that pretty much any numbers you pick you will see that if a startup is 'taking off' it needs more money to address the money left on the table (from the rest of its proven, addressable market) if they want to do it fast. (Whiile the iron is hot, while they have momentum and maybe press coverage, while they're young and hip and new, while market conditions don't change due to unforeseen external changes, and finally before well-funded competition arrives on the scene, including from big companies who will enter if the growth holds out. Big companies don't just enter any market that has 10k customers, they might not even do market research yet, which you already have. Etc etc etc.)
What startup can you think of in which if you bootstrap to $100,000 in revenue from 10k customers, and let's say miraculously have the complete $100,000 to spend, you can magically address the whole 600million person market your 10k customers are in by the end of the following year?
I think that's what I meant by the word 'all told' - factor in every cost into those 10k customers. (Except your fixed costs of 3 x 160 hours @ $0, of course! And a $10 ___domain name.)
I think it's fair to say you must spend something on customer acquisition and infrastructure to service them: it's impossible to spend $50,000, get to 10k customers, and not spend another nickel but three months later you have two hundred million of them. There are a lot of variable costs and acquisition costs, even though they get factored into your total expenditure.
I mean, what fixed costs does a 3-person startup actually have? 3 times 160 hours @ $0.00 per hour, i.e. the founders' time, sure, and then what? If you get to two hundred million customers, every item in your budget is much greater. I can't think of a single service that can get those customers for free, and on a paying-for-conversions rate a few bucks seemed realistic (rounded to factor in all your variable costs broken down to customers).
I think though that pretty much any numbers you pick you will see that if a startup is 'taking off' it needs more money to address the money left on the table (from the rest of its proven, addressable market) if they want to do it fast. (Whiile the iron is hot, while they have momentum and maybe press coverage, while they're young and hip and new, while market conditions don't change due to unforeseen external changes, and finally before well-funded competition arrives on the scene, including from big companies who will enter if the growth holds out. Big companies don't just enter any market that has 10k customers, they might not even do market research yet, which you already have. Etc etc etc.)
What startup can you think of in which if you bootstrap to $100,000 in revenue from 10k customers, and let's say miraculously have the complete $100,000 to spend, you can magically address the whole 600million person market your 10k customers are in by the end of the following year?
I think that's what I meant by the word 'all told' - factor in every cost into those 10k customers. (Except your fixed costs of 3 x 160 hours @ $0, of course! And a $10 ___domain name.)