Two companies, bootstrapped
Two products, built as well as I could build them. What decided whether anyone paid was never the product. It was distribution, and nobody had told me.
How it went
Ten years, two companies, one lessonOutsourcing
Stable: clients, delivery, the next sprint. I knew how the week would look before it started.
Kromatika
Started as AristokratesNo round, no deck. $2M in grants, 1,000 users, a peak valuation around $26M.
I ran its community: 3k people on Telegram and Discord. This isn’t my first room.
The customers funded it. Which sounds noble, and mostly meant that if nobody paid this month, there was no month.
Chainlink Fall Hackathon
Award winner, then a Q&A with ChainlinkKromatika was a trading platform. It won an award at the Chainlink hackathon that autumn, and they invited me on to talk about how we built it.
Chainlink · Q&A
Kromatika on Chainlink Q&A
How we built it, and what it took. Watch on YouTube →
Named in an SEC filing
The token was named in a complaint connected to the Wahi insider-trading case, and classified as an unregistered security. I wasn’t a party to it.
A strange thing to read about your own work on a Tuesday morning. It taught me more about regulators than any course would have.
Exited
It worked. I left.
Blockia Labs
Estonia, co-founders from SwedenA consulting company. Inside it we started Blockia Pay, a cross-border money-transfer product, and built it for a few months. Those were the first days of what is AgentaOS today.
The split
Blockia Pay became its own product and I continued alone. Four months to find fit, and it meant changing the whole model, not adding a feature.
AgentaOS launched
Selling by card and subscription from any country, no company required.
Still a solo-founder story, with a few people on compliance. What’s left of the road is the code, and the mistakes.
Four months at €0
Then thirty daysFour months
Live, priced, finished. Not €200. Zero. I genuinely considered that I’d misread the whole thing.
Thirty days later
I stopped waiting and started asking people, by name, whether they’d pay.
Two weeks after that
No ads. No sales team. No new feature.
They build
A genuinely good product. The part they know how to do.
They set a price
Put up a link. Make the page look right.
Then they wait
Nobody comes. Because nobody has heard of it.
A good product does not find its customers. Somebody has to carry it to them.
Why I run it
Distribution is a habit, and habits need witnessesSomebody asks
Every weekWho did you talk to. Who did you ask to pay. What did they say. Then again the week after.
A live workshop
Once a monthOther makers telling you what didn’t work for them, with the numbers attached.
A room that notices
If you go quietNo course. No certificate. No promise you’ll be rich.
$0 to $1k MRR
in 30 days.
One goal. One number. €0 to €1k if you sell in euros — same road, same 30 days.Key facts
Everything in one placeBootstrapped Makers is a community that takes bootstrapped SaaS makers from a live product nobody pays for to their first $1k MRR.
- Name
- Bootstrapped Makers
- What it is
- An online community for bootstrapped SaaS makers
- Who it’s for
- Makers with a live product and nobody paying yet: agency owners, freelancers, indie makers
- The goal
- $0 to $1k MRR in 30 days
- Opens
- 29 September 2026
- Based
- Tallinn, Estonia. Global, in English
- What members get
- 13 playbooks (3 free), a monthly live workshop, mentors, the community, 4 partner discounts
- Price
- First month free for founding members, then €19/month or €190/year
- Terms
- Month to month. Cancel in one click
- Partners
- Outrank, Bazzly, LaunchRepo, AgentaOS
- On the list
- 100+ makers
- Compared with
- Indie Hackers, WIP, MicroConf Connect, Dynamite Circle, Hampton · see how
- Website
- bootstrappedmakers.com
What I’m not
So you can stop reading hereNot an investor
I don’t want equity.
Not a marketing guru
I was at €0 for four months this year.
Not a headline exit
I’ve never sold a company for a number you’d recognise. If that’s the credential you’re looking for, this isn’t the community.
What I do have
Companies built without outside money
Kromatika and AgentaOS. Both from zero.
Founders’ real numbers
A payments platform shows me what actually gets paid, and what quietly doesn’t.
Strong opinion about pricing
Happy to be argued out of it on a Tuesday.
If you’re building alone and asking whether it’s worth it: it was.
