A message worth reading from our founder, Alex Sanfilippo!
I haven’t talked about this in a long time, but I think it’s relevant. From company owners, the two most common questions I get asked about PodMatch are these: 1. “How many employees do you have?” 2. “How much capital have you raised?” ^ The perspective that most companies share is this: The bigger your staff, and the more capital you’ve raised, the better your company is. I’ve always disagreed with this. Short answer to these questions: The entire staff consists of 3 people. (Alecia, Jesse, and myself) We’re fully bootstrapped; we’ve not raised any capital. … In the mind of most software founders and other company owners, this immediately discredits us, and then we’re looked down upon. Which, I guess is fine. It used to bother me, but the reality is, we’re just doing something different. I’m confident in that now. HOW AND WHY: 1. By having minimal staff, we maximize profits. That matters because we’re big on sharing our profits with podcasters through our PodValue initiative. (We pay podcasters who use PodMatch) 2. If we raise money, we are then accountable to the person who gave us money, instead of the people we serve. Which are podcast hosts and guests; and we never want that to change. We’ve intentionally set the company up the way we have because we know it helps us maintain the proper focus. The focus on serving independent voices through podcasting! Is it harder to do it this way? Yes! Much. Even vacations often look like this photo I’ve included in this post; “some work time involved.” Hah! Is it worth it? Completely!!! I’m not sure who needs to hear this today, but I wanted to encourage you to stay focused on who you serve, don’t let the pressure of “the right way to do it” influence you. What you’re creating has purpose, and it will serve someone. It won’t always be easy, but it will be worth it!