Pros and Cons of Bootstrapping a Business with Rytis Lauris, Co-Founder & CEO of Omnisend

Another thing I wanted to talk about is your success in bootstrapping your business. I know how hard it is to grow a business, and for my audience—small, medium‑sized, and enterprise businesses—I also want to discuss what it takes to bootstrap a company.

You have over 100 employees, you’re helping over 50,000 stores, and you’re operating in 130 countries in six or seven years. That’s no easy feat—I talk to a lot of people and work with many companies.

I’d like to pick your brain: what were the pros and cons of choosing to bootstrap your business? Feel free to take us back to the beginning.

Yeah, I gotta keep my company. I love the way you look at things. I love the way you look at that because it really does.

The minute you take $1 from a VC—and I’m not saying don’t—there are upsides and downsides. One downside is you’re giving up a piece of your company and someone else—another CEO—could push you out of the way if they want to, and sometimes that’s needed. But the good part of what you said is, if you have VC money, you’re playing for the VC—you’re not playing for the customers as much as you are now.

If they’re saying, ‘You need to do this, this, this, and this,’ and you say, ‘But the customer needs this, this, this, and this,’ you still have to generate sales in a way that may not be best for the customer. It’s best for the VC because you need to hit certain multiples or numbers.

That’s an interesting way of looking at things, because you have a wife and a girlfriend and you’re trying to figure out who to spend time with. That becomes a difficult situation. I’ve never had a wife and a girlfriend, but I’ve heard from friends that it’s difficult. My wife is amazing, so why would I find a girlfriend?

But that’s the hard part, and that’s funny. When you said that, it made total sense to me.

Now you’re hustling for somebody else because you have to use the money fast. You have to do this, and it’s a different situation and mindset because you have to change things up.

I love that. I love customer funded. It’s so much better, because ‘bootstrap’ sounds like a guy in big boots.

Customer funded means people are saying, ‘I’m gonna give you some more money this month because you’re doing a great job and giving us great features.’ So I love that.

Yeah, it’s always easier when you get VC money. But the problem is, there’s going to be a point where you have a certain burn rate and you’re doing certain things, and if it doesn’t work, you’ve just wasted a lot of money.

That’s when you’re grimy and bootstrapping and saying, “Hey, listen, we got to evaluate every dollar because we don’t always know if that next dollar is coming.” You have to add new features, test new things, and constantly pivot in whatever direction you need to go to keep the business going.

I definitely have a lot of respect for people with VC money. That’s awesome, but people who have actually done it without VC money—it’s a different ball game for sure. Everything happens for a reason. You were told no at the door of a VC multiple times—you wish they had invested, huh? Now look at us, huh? Email marketing still works. I told you. That’s funny.

So do you have any tips for entrepreneurs starting off who need to bootstrap their business? Anything you learned through that whole process?

Yeah. I mean, once again, everybody has, everybody’s product they brought to market was terrible, right? I mean, that’s just how it is, because it’s not going to be perfect.

Yeah. That’s the thing. They were paying for it. Now you have all these great features. Now it’s worth it—now it’s worth the price. Back then it was, “Please keep playing. We know it’s not great,” or maybe we thought it was great but didn’t know there was another level to making it great. Now we do, and we apologize. We’ll continue to work hard for you, add more features, and get more people to like the product. I love that.

So you have over 100 employees? How many offices do you have? You guys are all over.

Yeah that makes sense. And then are you willing to tell us? What is your MMR, where are you guys at man, I know you guys have been been striking away at this thing and doing big things. You mind letting the audience know where you’re at with that?

You’ve got a big old smile on your face. This is a podcast, and you’ve been nothing but smiling. You mentioned two million—you gave me the serious face—but I know you must be excited about that. That’s awesome.

You’ve built something incredible. Now I see the big old smile. Congratulations. You’ve really worked your butts off to get here. That’s huge.

I think we’ve pulled enough information from the genius himself on SMS and email marketing. Now we’re moving into our fun section. I don’t mean the other sections weren’t fun—we had a great time—but these questions are outside of business.

This one will be interesting since you’re a traveler. You said, “Listen, I’m used to traveling and moving and shaking.” If there were one place in the world you could go for free—COVID‑free, no mask required—where would it be?

I know I threw it for free. That way, you don’t have to worry about it.

Why not? You want to go all over the world and see different places, because it’s on me and it’s free. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of it?

Most people—I’m like, okay, I could pay for you to go to one place, but you want to see the whole world—that’s more expensive. I’ll have to talk to the team about funding your world trip. Please do.

It was funny in one of my past interviews: the guy I was interviewing asked if he was taking his family or not. I thought that was hilarious. He said, “I just want to know if I’m bringing them or not, because that’s going to be a different trip.” I said, “Is one trip like Vegas if your wife’s not going, and if she is going, it’s like Hawaii?” I loved that.

I spoke in Sri Lanka maybe two years ago and didn’t realize how close the Maldives was. I was at a Cinnamon Hotel in Sri Lanka, and everyone asked if I was going to the Maldives afterward. I said, “No—how far is it?” They said hours. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to take my wife; I wanted to be at the most romantic place in the world and hang out by myself. So I didn’t make it to the Maldives, but that’s definitely on my list.

I’m going to definitely be heading out to Sri Lanka again, and also to the Maldives as well. So all right, I got another question for you. So if you could choose any kind of superpower, what would your superpower be?

That’s a good idea—when nobody suggested cloning yourself. I told my wife, “I’m thinking about cloning myself.” She said, “That’s a terrible idea. I don’t think we need two of you in this world.”

I asked, “Is that a bad thing? Or do you just not want to?” I explained the clone could help out—maybe work on the house while I’m working. She said, “Maybe, but I just don’t know if we need that.”

I didn’t know whether to take offense or if we’re still good. Then I thought, “Maybe I’m the clone—I’m the second version of Shane and she doesn’t know it.”

I think we’d have to come to terms—probably with an attorney—and say, okay, two Shanes can’t be in the same room. This Shane has to be working over here, maybe in a little private area. You just feed him a little food and water, and then the other Shane will be out. Maybe this second Shane will have a better body and can have his shirt off. The first Shane can’t have his shirt off; I don’t know. Anyway, there are a lot of details to work out. But I like that—cloning would be nice, because you could divide and conquer. Literally, divide and conquer. You can split up your DNA and make it happen. I like that. That’s a good one.

What about any favorite books or podcasts that you listen to that have shaped your career or personality? Anything fun that’s your go‑to?

I love that. It’s funny when they talk about overnight successes and quotes like, “It only took me ten years to be an overnight success.” That’s not realistic. As entrepreneurs, we have to be willing to take punches and accept that it’s hard.

A lot of people look at this and say, “You built the company like that? That’s amazing,” but I don’t know if they know what it takes. I built one of my old businesses to 130 employees in two years. That growth was insane. People don’t understand how much you go through as an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is not easy, and not everyone can do it. That’s why I give Omnisend so much kudos—building something like that successfully is phenomenal.

We’ll include the books Rytis mentioned in the show notes. If anyone wants to contact you or learn more about Omnisend, how do they do that?

Email. I’ve heard about email. I wish we should do a podcast about that. Maybe that’s what we’ll do next. That’s a great idea.

That’s awesome—you’ve got a killer topic lined up! Email marketing really is pure gold. If you’d like a hand sketching out that next episode—whether it’s nailing down an outline, picking the hottest sub‑topics (welcome series, segmentation, automation workflows, ROI tracking), or even brainstorming guests—just say the word.

What angle are you thinking of taking? Beginners’ basics, advanced growth hacks, or maybe a deep dive into real‑world success stories? Let me know and we’ll make sure your audience walks away with plenty of “aha” moments.

Thanks, Rytis for those amazing insights. It’s no secret that bootstrapping a business is challenging, but today, you shed some light on some more rewarding alternatives to bootstrapping. I’m sure that aspiring entrepreneurs listening are super excited to try that one out. A big thank you to our listeners for joining us today. Stay tuned for another exciting conversation on our next episode of The Marketing Growth Podcast.