How to Build a $5 Million Software Business from a Spreadsheet File
Jesse is the founder of “You Need a Budget”, a software product that helps you with your personal budgeting. Jesse is a former Certified Public Accountant (CPA) turned software entrepreneur. He founded YNAB in 2004 and has successfully grown it into a multi-million dollar business with tens of thousands of users from all over the world.
Key Talking Points
- How Jesse started this business by selling an Excel spreadsheet that he'd initially created for himself and his wife.
- How the Excel spreadsheet wasn't selling until Jesse started charging MORE money for it.
- Why content creation and education is the top priority for YNAB and why software plays ‘second fiddle'.
- The key essential lessons that Jesse learned about copywriting and landing pages which helped to double his sales.
- How Jesse's goal with his business was to simply generate $350 per month to cover his rent.
- How Jesse grew YNAB from its modest beginnings into a business that he could work on full-time.
- Why Jesse scrapped software that he'd spent over $60,000 on and rebuilt it from scratch.
- Why Jesse kept working in the full-time job when his business was generating about double his salary.
Getting to $10K MRR
Weekly coaching, proven frameworks, and a community of early-stage founders.
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Scaling to $1M ARR
Strategic guidance, direct mentorship, and a peer group of 6-figure founders.
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Success Quote
- “The single-minded ones, the monomaniacs, are the only true achievers. The rest, the ones like me, may have more fun; but they fritter themselves away…. Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.” – Peter Drucker
Book Recommendation
- “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley
Links & Resources Mentioned
Contact Information
- Jesse Mecham – @jessemecham or jesse [at] ynab [dot] com
- Omer Khan – @omerkhan