“They won’t write my net worth on my grave.”

After raising nearly $1M of angel funding with his previous two businesses, Elie Steinbock is bootstrapping his latest project.

Let's take a peek at his finances.

Time > money

💰 "Your time is worth a lot more than money." —Elie

Elie spends on anything that saves him time — if it saves him one hour, he'll happily spend over $100 on it.

💰 "I see far too many people undervaluing their time. They won’t spend $10 on a tool that saves them an hour, even though their time is worth more than 10x that. And they don’t realize that the time it took them to decide was worth more than the $10 they were worried about spending." —Elie

That means he puts money into books (and Audible), SaaS products, health (food, supplements, personal trainers), and high-end office equipment. Like, really high end.

He recently spent $2,000 on a Herman Miller Aeron office chair. And he doesn't regret it one bit.

💰 "It’s a one-time expense that will last me 10+ years and thousands of days of work." —Elie

Plus, it's better on his back when working long hours.

It's not all about efficiency, though. He's also currently paying for a table tennis coach to sharpen his skills with the paddle.

And there are limits to what he'll spend on efficiency.

💰 "It’s more time-efficient to outsource work to others, but there are high costs involved in hiring and you have the communication overhead too." —Elie

He’s a developer by trade, but he has learned design and marketing. And while he admits that he probably wouldn't hire himself as a designer, he's good enough to get the job done. This saves him a lot of cash.

Hard numbers

Let's take a look at what he's bringing in.

Elie is focusing on Inbox Zero, which he launchedrecently. He currently has 4,000 users. He also has an agency that was making $1M/yr until he scaled back, a fantasy soccer game with 250,000 users, and a Web3 affiliate platform called ShareMint.

• Inbox Zero revenue: $900 MRR

• ShareMint revenue: Variable (thousands per month)

• Agency revenue: $15,000/mo

• Draft Fantasy revenue: $3,300/mo

• Inbox Zero pay: N/A

• Agency pay: $4,000/mo

• Draft Fantasy pay: $800/mo

• Sharemint pay: Variable (splits revenue with cofounder)

• Personal savings: Undisclosed

• Business savings: Undisclosed

That $4k that he pays himself from his agency was decided by his accountant, who says it's the optimal amount to take tax-wise in Israel. With this level, he pays 23% corporate tax and a similar amount on his salary. While it’s not much, his wife also brings home a salary so they always have enough.

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Charge for your value

Elie is all about charging what your product is worth. If you don't, others will outcompete you on marketing because they can afford to do so.

💰 "Charge for what you build. It’s difficult to run a business when everything is free." —Elie

He says not charging is a mistake that many first-time founders make. Of course, sometimes it works out. But he notes that this is usually with VC-backed companies who can subsidize their (lack of) revenue.

The only thing he advises giving away is a free tool as a lead magnet.

Post-angel bootstrapping

Speaking of funding, Elie is bootstrapping now, but he has received angel investments twice. He raised $400k for Draft Fantasy and $450k for ShareMint. He says both approaches have benefits.

The benefits of funding:

• Build a team to move faster with a better product.

• Bigger outcomes.

• Better odds of success.

• If you make it to a Series B, you can "sell millions of dollars in secondary sales, and succeed financially even if the company doesn’t ultimately succeed."

Bootstrapping benefits:

• Full control.

• No pressure to pay your investors back.

• You build a sustainable business from the start.

• You’re not stuck on a single idea. You can pivot.

• No wasted time convincing investors that what you're doing is valuable.

• The bar to succeed is lower.

• Successful bootstrapped founders pay themselves much better than early stage VC backed companies.

💰 "There’s a lower ceiling you need to hit as a bootstrapped founder. If you can get to $1m ARR, it's all yours. Even $300k ARR is nice as a solo founder." —Elie

Investing in stability

Elie invests in the S&P 500 and crypto.

He says the S&P 500 is just a solid bet, noting that it has had stable returns for over a century.

As for crypto, he’s investing mostly in Ethereum and Bitcoin.

💰 "I favor Ethereum over Bitcoin, because it’s programmable, faster, and doesn’t waste immense amounts of energy, as it’s no longer proof-of-work. Not to mention the huge ecosystem of projects built on top of it." —Elie

He says he’s optimistic about the long-term potential of crypto.

💰 "The best time to buy is when prices are low. But most people seem to buy when prices are skyrocketing." —Elie

What he isn't investing in is his retirement.

💰 "I’d rather focus on the here-and-now. My situation in 40 years time will be very different to what it is today. I can do more with my money today than if I try to optimize for my life far into the future." —Elie

Satisfaction is rich

💰 "Money doesn’t make you happy. Once you cross a fairly low threshold you have all the money you need. Even $100k in savings that is replenished is enough to do basically anything you want in life." —Elie

Money may not make him happy, but he does want it. He says he'd be proud to be a billionaire one day. Not because he could spend even 1% of that, but because it's a measure of impact.

To him, dollars are a lot like points. And a billion points seems pretty solid in any game (golf excluded).

💰 "At the end of the day, the money that I die with is meaningless. They won’t write my net worth on my grave. I want to build cool things that make a dent in the universe, and maintain a good reputation while doing it. I want to be the kind of person that my daughters are proud of." —Elie

Like most of us, there's a lot that he still wants to do. But he's satisfied with — and proud of — where he's at.

💰 "There’s an old Jewish phrase in Pirkei Avot: 'Who is rich? The one who is satisfied with what they have.'" —Elie

Check out Elie's businesses: Inbox Zero, Skilled, Draft Fantasy, and ShareMint. Or find him on X.

Please note that the above are opinions. This is meant for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be financial advice.

And if you'd like to be featured as a guest in a future interview for this series, let me know in the comments!

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