Episode 608 | Bootstrapping (and Exiting) a 7-Figure Info Product

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Management, Entrepreneurship, Business, Marketing

4.8 • 792 Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In episode 608, Rob Walling chats with Adrian Rosebrock, who bootstrapped and successfully exited his seven-figure info product company, PyImageSearch, in 2021. PyImageSearch provided digital courses around visual image detection and image classification in Python. Adrian wasn’t always an entrepreneur. He graduated with a PhD in computer science, got a day job, realized early on that he hated it, and just stair-stepped his way up to running a successful business. In this episode, we cover a lot including Adrian’s decision to start blogging and launch a Kickstarter campaign in the early days to learning how to hire employees and making the decision to sell the business in 2021. Episode Sponsor: Microsoft for Startups Founder Hub Microsoft for Startups is on a mission to help all founders innovate and grow no matter their background, location, or progress. Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub is a platform that provides founders with free resources to help solve startup challenges, including access to Azure credits, development tools like Github, mentorship resources, Microsoft collaboration and productivity software like Teams and Outlook and more. The program is open to all and takes 5 minutes to sign up, with no funding required. Learn more aka.ms/startupsfortherestofus Topics we cover: [2:41] The story of how Adrian first discovered MicroConf [6:29] Why Adrian didn’t want to go down the traditional path after getting his PhD in computer science [10:01] When he knew having a traditional day job as an employee wasn’t for him [11:24] How he used the stair-step approach to launch PyImageSearch [13:54] What Adrian did when he started to see early traction [16:45] Did having a PhD in computer science have a big impact in the early days of launching his business? [18:05] Adrian’s approach to learning how to market [20:31] How he balanced working a day job and his side business in the early days [23:39] Adrian’s launch plan for selling his first ebook in 2014 [28:48] The epiphanies that Adrian had in the early days to keep plugging away [33:33] How he went from making $38,000 in 2014 to $600,000 in 2016 as a company of one [36:28] The mindset shifts he had to make when he started hiring employees [39:10] Adrian’s decision to sell the business [45:03] His reflections after selling the business in 2021 Links from the Show: Adrian Rosebrock @InfoProdMastery I Twitter PyImageSearch Info Product Mastery The Stair Step Approach to Bootstrapping Ryan Delk: Lifting The Veil: The Data Behind Successful Product Launches I Youtube Quiet Light If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that...

Transcript

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0:00.0	I studied this in school, and you have to understand that just because you have a PhD in computer vision,
0:05.2	it doesn't mean you understand the entirety of computer vision. You likely only understand a certain,
0:10.1	very small facet. But by teaching it, you're getting all these questions, and you honestly may not know the answer to.
0:16.4	Now, the difference between someone who's a PhD is that they can likely read a paper or two and get up to speed very quickly. And that's the situation I was in. But I certainly had to be humble with
0:24.6	myself and lower my ego and say, at times, I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm
0:29.4	to add it to my queue of blog posts and I'll see if I can cover it in the future.
0:42.0	No startup founders were harmed in the making of this podcast.
0:44.0	Welcome back to Startup to the rest of us.
0:45.2	Episode 608.
0:53.3	I have quite a story for you today about Adrian Rosebrock who bootstrapped and exited a seven-figure info product called Pi Image Search.
0:59.8	And no, it's not about finding pumpkin and Apple on, what is it, March 14th? Yeah, March 14th, Pi Day.
1:01.2	It is about visual image detection and image classification in Python.
1:07.1	And this is really an incredible story of how Adrian graduated with a PhD in computer science with an emphasis on digital image processing and recognition and how he didn't like his day job.
1:19.7	And so he started a blog and he just stair stepped his way up.
1:22.5	We talk about stair stepping.
1:23.8	We talk about how Adrian discovered this podcast back in the 2010,2011 time frame and how that led him down this path of bootstrapped entrepreneurship.
1:33.9	And it's a pretty incredible story in the sense that he had built this info product up into the low seven figures with essentially, I think his team was three people.
1:42.3	So it was just minting money into his personal
1:44.3	bank account. And then in 2020, 2021, he had that epiphany that maybe he wasn't learning
1:49.9	new things anymore. And I ask him that straight up. A lot of folks listening to this podcast
1:55.2	would love to have an app or an info product doing seven figures a year and throwing off,
2:01.2	I conjecture 80%, 90% net profit.
	...

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