Limitless growth!

October 29, 2019 / 56:01/E82

Wrestling with capitalism, SSO, and our spending

This is a heavy one! Let us know at @buildyoursaas if you listen to the whole thing.

On a micro-scale many folks believe "how much MRR is enough?" is a silly question, because, in our current global economic model, your business has to keep growing (or it will eventually die). (CHURN will kill you)
But on a macro-scale, our economic system relies on perpetually increasing:
- resource extraction
- population growth
- energy usage
- (Not sustainable)
As founders, it's hard enough to wrestle with the "normal" issues, much less wrestle with existential questions. But this is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night...
"To succeed is to destroy ourselves. To fail is to destroy ourselves. That is the bind we have created." – George Monbiot (Guardian article)
A remember Paul Hawken having a brighter take when I read "The Ecology of Commerce" years ago while I was taking my undergrad. I should read it again.
“Social theorists often take just one of these moments and view it as the “silver bullet” that causes all change. We have technological determinists (Tom Friedman), environmental determinists (Jared Diamond), daily life determinists (Paul Hawken), labor process determinists (the autonomistas), class struggle determinists (most Marxist political parties), institutionalists, and so on and so forth.”
Budgeting over time:
- Early: we spent as little as we could
- When we went full-time (April and July): still be lean, but investing in more tools
- Now: realizing (maybe) its better for us to invest in tools, infrastructure, equipment? Also: better to pay ourselves more?
Profit first:
- We started with: 50% salaries, 15% saved for taxes, 5% profit, the rest expenses
- Maybe we need to move to: 60% - 70% salaries?

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