Our Journey to Bootstrapping socra AI

We're a two-person team, husband and wife, based in Dallas, TX 🇺🇸, and we've been bootstrapping so

We're a two-person team, husband and wife, based in Dallas, TX 🇺🇸, and we've been bootstrapping socra AI since September 2022. ### Background In August 2022, I (@ed) quit my job at a unicorn startup to start my own venture. I am a mechanical engineer with experience in R&D, semiconductor manufacturing, program management, design, and startups. In January 2023, @mike quit his job as an engineer at Apple to build socra AI. He is a mixed-signal electrical engineer, a self-taught full-stack web developer, a test and validation engineer, an applied AI engineer, and a data scientist. Here are the top three components that I believe have helped us succeed in bootstrapping: 1. We are both eager to learn and acquire any skill necessary to bring our vision to life. 2. We have complementary skills, interests, and areas of expertise. I gravitated towards UI/UX, focusing on crafting a seamless experience, while Mike's primary concerns are functionality, performance, and scalability. My focus lies in user experience and the bigger picture strategy, ensuring we are aligned with our vision. We often joke that my most important role is prioritizing the problems that will put Mike's brain to tackle. We have built everything ourselves, never hiring any contractors or anyone else. We believe that together, we can solve any problem given enough time. 3. We had saved up enough money to live for a few years, and we are willing to invest it to realize our vision. ## My main advice Focus on profitability. That's the only way to play the long-term bootstrapping game; your survival depends on it. One day, you'll run out of money if you don't become profitable or secure VC funding. Don't let that happen, your top priority should be to secure ramen profitability first. ### Additional Thoughts Bootstrapping is very rewarding. You can follow your vision and nothing else because you don't have investors to please. You can do what you want instead of working for somebody else.

By Eduarda Ferreira