Bootstrapped SaaS Survey: Marketing Without VC Lessons

Independent SaaS founders have a data problem: most “startup benchmarks” are quietly built around venture-backed economics. Big ad budgets, blitzscaling headcount, and growth curves powered by outside capital. That’s useful if you’re raising. It’s misleading if you’re not.

That’s why the State of Independent SaaS survey concept (popularized by Startups For the Rest of Us) matters—even when the original page disappears behind a 404. The point isn’t the link. The point is the shared dataset: real operators comparing notes on how they acquire customers, price, retain, and grow without VC.

This post translates the survey idea into something you can use right now inside the US Startup Marketing Without VC series: a practical, founder-friendly blueprint for what to measure, what “good” looks like, and which bootstrapped marketing moves tend to compound.

Why independent SaaS benchmarks beat VC benchmarks

If you’re bootstrapping, the right benchmark is “efficient growth,” not “fast growth.” VC metrics often assume you can spend aggressively to learn quickly. Bootstrapped metrics assume you must learn while staying alive.

Here’s what changes when you’re not playing the VC game:

• Payback periods matter more than top-line growth. If cash leaves today and returns 12 months later, you’re funding the gap yourself.
• Channels that compound beat channels that spike. SEO, partnerships, community, and integrations tend to stack over time.
• Churn is existential. A leaky bucket kills a bootstrapped company faster because you can’t “buy” your way out.

A strong independent SaaS survey becomes a mirror. You don’t just ask “how am I doing?” You ask “how am I doing for a company with my constraints?”

The myth most founders still believe

Most companies get this wrong: they copy the marketing playbook of the loudest companies, not the most relevant ones.

If you’re a two-person SaaS in the US doing $12k MRR, the right comparisons are:

• Other small teams
• Similar ACV and sales motion
• Similar customer type (SMB vs mid-market)

Not a Series B company running paid acquisition experiments with a seven-figure monthly burn.

What to track (and compare) if you want growth without VC

The core job of a bootstrapped survey isn’t curiosity—it’s decision-making. You want metrics that help you choose channels, hiring, pricing, and positioning.

Below are the categories I’d want every independent SaaS founder to benchmark.

Revenue and growth (but with context)

Track the basics, then segment:

• MRR/ARR
• Monthly growth rate (net of churn)
• Expansion revenue vs new revenue
• Revenue per employee (or per founder)

Context questions that make the numbers usable:

• Are you B2B or B2C?
• What’s your ACV?
• Self-serve, sales-assisted, or sales-led?
• How long have you been in market?

A 6% monthly growth rate means one thing at $3k MRR and something else at $300k MRR.

Acquisition: channel mix that reflects reality

Bootstrapped SaaS acquisition usually concentrates into 1–2 channels that work, plus a few experiments. If you’re spreading thin across eight channels, you’re probably not giving any channel enough time to mature.

Benchmark these:

• Primary channel (the one that brings the most qualified leads)
• Secondary channel
• Share of leads by channel
• CAC (even rough)
• Payback period (months)

For this topic series, the channels to pay closest attention to are:

• Content marketing + SEO (the default compounding engine)
• Founder-led outbound (for higher ACV B2B)
• Partnerships/integrations (distribution you don’t have to buy)
• Community-driven growth (audience first, product second)

Retention and churn (where bootstrappers win)

If you want marketing without VC, you need retention without miracles.

Track:

• Logo churn (monthly)
• Revenue churn / net revenue retention (NRR)
• Activation rate (trial → “aha” moment)
• Time-to-value (days)

A blunt but useful stance: if you don’t know your churn, you don’t know your marketing. Because churn determines how hard marketing must work just to stand still.

Profitability and cash discipline

Independent SaaS isn’t allergic to growth—it’s allergic to fragile growth.

Benchmark:

• Gross margin
• Net margin
• Owner take (founder salary + distributions)
• Runway (even if you’re profitable, know your downside)

If a survey tells you “most founders reinvest X% of profit into growth,” that’s actionable. It helps you decide whether you’re under-investing (stalled growth) or over-investing (stress and churn).

The bootstrapped marketing tactics that tend to show up in independent SaaS

Independent SaaS founders usually win through clarity and repetition, not novelty. The tactics below are the ones I’d expect to see repeatedly when you ask successful bootstrappers how they got traction.

1) Content that targets “money keywords” and “pain keywords”

The best bootstrapped SEO doesn’t chase broad volume. It chases high intent.

A simple split:

• Money keywords: “invoice automation for contractors,” “SOC 2 compliance tool for startups”
• Pain keywords: “how to reduce chargebacks,” “Gmail shared inbox problems”

Publish both, but measure them differently:

• Money keywords should convert faster.
• Pain keywords build trust and feed retargeting, email, and product-led activation.

If you’re early-stage, you don’t need 100 posts. You need 10 pages that close deals.

2) Email as the backbone of owned growth

Bootstrapped SaaS companies that last treat email as infrastructure.

What works consistently:

• A weekly or biweekly newsletter tied to your niche
• A simple onboarding sequence that drives activation in 7–14 days
• “Trigger” emails based on product usage (not blasts)

Email is where content marketing becomes a predictable lead engine. It’s also the channel you still own if Google rankings wobble.

3) Partnerships and integration-led distribution

If you don’t have VC, you can’t outspend competitors. You can still out-distribute them.

Integration-led growth is often the highest ROI move once you have baseline product-market fit:

• Build an integration for a tool your customers already live in
• Co-market with the platform or agency partners
• Publish “works with X” pages that rank and convert

The compounding effect is real: each integration can become its own acquisition surface area.

4) Community and credibility flywheels

Community isn’t “start a Slack.” It’s becoming the default helpful presence in a niche.

Practical paths for US bootstrapped founders:

• Show up weekly in one place your buyers already gather (LinkedIn, a niche forum, a trade association)
• Host small webinars with partners (50 great attendees beats 500 random ones)
• Share teardown-style content: pricing pages, onboarding flows, real examples

This is slower than ads. It’s also harder to copy.

How to use a survey mindset to improve your marketing decisions

The big benefit of an independent SaaS survey is calibration. You stop guessing whether your numbers are “bad,” and you start asking “what’s the constraint?”

Here’s a simple way to apply survey-style thinking—even without access to the original dataset.

Step 1: Create your peer group (don’t compare to everyone)

Pick 10–20 companies (or founder friends) that match:

• Similar ACV
• Similar customer type
• Similar sales motion
• Similar team size

If you can’t find them publicly, build a micro-network. I’ve found that 6–8 founders who share numbers monthly beats any generic benchmark report.

Step 2: Answer three decision-driving questions

These are the questions that actually change your roadmap:

1. Which channel produces the highest-quality leads? (not the most leads)
2. What’s the slowest part of the funnel? (activation, close rate, retention)
3. What’s the cheapest growth you’re ignoring? (email, partners, upsells)

Step 3: Run one “boring” experiment per month

Bootstrapped marketing works when it’s boring and consistent.

Examples of boring experiments with real impact:

• Rewrite your homepage around one ICP and one problem
• Add 3 case studies and put one behind every demo request
• Build a comparison page (“X alternative”) that’s honest and specific
• Ship one integration that your top 20 customers requested

Do one. Measure it. Keep it if it works.

A useful rule: if an experiment can’t be measured in 30 days, define a leading indicator (activation rate, demo requests, reply rate) so you’re not waiting forever.

People also ask: independent SaaS marketing without VC

What’s the fastest marketing channel for bootstrapped SaaS?

Founder-led outbound is often the fastest for B2B with clear targeting and a reasonable ACV. It’s controllable, learnable, and doesn’t require an audience upfront.

What’s the most reliable long-term channel?

Content marketing and SEO are the most reliable long-term channels for independent SaaS because they compound. The tradeoff is patience and consistency.

How much should a bootstrapped SaaS spend on marketing?

A practical range many profitable bootstrapped companies aim for is 5–20% of revenue, depending on growth goals and payback period. If you can’t measure payback, start smaller and instrument first.

What to do next (if you want leads, not just “awareness”)

If you’re building in 2026, the market is crowded and buyers are skeptical. The upside is that small teams can still win—but only if you choose channels that reward consistency and customer understanding.

Start by treating independent SaaS benchmarks as a tool, not trivia. Define your peer set, measure the few numbers that drive decisions, and commit to a monthly rhythm of improvements.

If you’re working through the US Startup Marketing Without VC series, here’s the question to carry into your next week of work: which single compounding channel are you willing to run long enough to become known for it?