author  From Stefan Pretty, CEO & Founder
author  From Stefan Pretty, CEO & Founder

Dear reader,

I'm Stefan the founder of Subbly and I'm NOT going to tell you why to choose us.

Normally this is where I would tell you how amazing our features are (they're here) and show comparison charts. But I'm not going to do that. Instead I'm going to tell you who we are and why we do what we do.

You already know we make software for subscription businesses. So lets get into the who we are.

You can consider this our company manifesto or cultural values document.

Note: The inspiring bits are at the end, so keep reading.


Our Manifesto

We are NOT...

  • ...a big stiff corporate tech company
  • ...the best in the market for every feature ever
  • ...a company who only cares about 1 thing, growth and money
  • ...ignorant
  • ...scared of getting our hands dirty
  • ...a heavily funded business who's mission is to make as much money as possible and then exit
  • ...unethical or controlling of your business.

We ARE...

  • ...a small lean business
  • ...a customer centric team
  • ...engaging, personable and fun
  • ...caring of your success
  • ...bootstrapped and proud of it
  • ...passionate about building something great
  • ...adamant that you can do more with less when you're determined to
  • ...3 years old and counting (we're here to stay)
  • ...a little rebellious to what is considered "normal" in the startup and tech world

That's the overview. But I want to explain what this means and elaborate a little.


We're small

We're a small team. Really small. In fact, most of what you see has been done by a handful of hard working talented people including myself. This makes us more lean than your typical tech company. We can make decisions faster, move faster, learn faster and we relentlessly care about what we spend our time on.

Being small also means you can schedule a call with our founder, me. You won't find that at your typical tech co.


We're bootstrapped

The typical route for a tech company is: validate business, raise money, build product, raise more money, grow team, grow grow grow, raise raise raise, etc...

An idea over time has been generated about what "success" means and what it should look like and what processes and steps are to be taken to get there. Yeah sure it might work, but it's a trap in our opinion and we believe in something else. We don't like this system. So we are doing it our way: bootstrapping. And we're damn proud of it.

This means: we're diligent, we grow when we get our product and marketing right, every dollar / pound counts, we live within our means (no big fancy salaries here), we focus on streamlining and doing more with less and focus on getting the right things right instead of just doing more because we have more money.

It also keeps us focused on staying close to our customers and learning from them and giving them what they want. Not what we think they want. We listen.

I also personally believe VC backed companies are not focused on the customer but rather the growth and hitting KPI's for their investors to keep them happy. This could end up being at the expense of the customer.


And with that said, we're cash positive +++

As per being bootstrapped, we're also cash positive. We plan on keeping it that way. Try find a heavily funded company that is actually making a profit and is cash positive. Even Intercom who are doing $50M in annual revenue and who are growing insanely fast, don't make a profit.

That just doesn't seem sustainable or sensible.

We'd rather have 1,000 fanatical customers who we love and they love us and be a healthy cash positive company than a large fast growing corporation with 100,000 customers we barely know, and have a leaky bucket of a business model.


We really f**cking care

No really. You have no idea. Being small and bootstrapped, this breeds a culture of giving a shit. Writing this right now, I give a shit. About you, and everyone else who is even slightly involved with us.

Our customer support is basically our main product. We want you to be a part of this.

As a side note, we also care about specific causes and want to give back by supporting charities.

But read on first...


We're pretty badass...

Apart from all these beliefs in business and methodologies. We're pretty damn cool. We don't follow the norms, we break the mold. 9 out of 10 startups fail in the first year. We're in year 3 and we're still growing and building things we're passionate about and that we ultimately want our customers to be passionate about as well.

We are hustlers like you. We hack and hustle and work hard and play hard and enjoy the whole process. We are hungry to learn and we want to share what we learn and share our journey.

We want you to join and to learn from you, giving you what you want - something that you will be passionate about, the same way we're passionate about it. We are all about the small to medium businesses, the ones who don't get the attention they should and have the hardest task at hand and biggest challenges to overcome.

We're like you, and you're like us.

We believe sticking together makes more sense and I invite you to join us and our other business owners and leaders to build a community around getting more done with less, learning and sharing.

We don't believe in conventions and following a rule just because it was said by someone who went a different path. This is our path and your path and we want to make our own story and break the mold and always strive for a better more sensible way that isn't just for credentials and glory, but for business sense, enjoyment and learning.


I invite you to rock with us

We consider ourselves misfits in a world of boring monotonous tech and we are here to stay and make a difference one business, one product at a time and one person at a time.

If Rock music could breed with Technology, it would be called Subbly. :metal:.

So will you join us on this fun exciting journey and make waves with us?

If this sounds like something you want to be a part of then let's get started.

Thanks for reading,
Stefan

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