$123 Million a Year Bootstrapped Time Tracking Software

About

Harvest is a web tool that helps businesses track time spent on projects.

The Team

Harvest was created by Danny Wen and Shawn Liu. They started as a small design and development agency, they transitioned to product development, launching Harvest in 2006.

• reference: https://www.groovehq.com/blog/harvest-danny-wen-interview

Business Model & Revenue

Harvest's business model is based on a Software as a Service (SaaS) approach. It offers a free trial to attract new users and encourages upgrades to paid plans by providing additional features and functionalities.

According to recent estimates, Harvest generates an annual revenue of $123 million.

Distribution

First, they focused on making content and reaching out to bloggers to get noticed early on. Later, they tried different ways to promote their product, like advertising on specific websites and sponsoring events that their customers liked. But the best way they found to get people interested was when happy customers told their friends about the product.

As we can see in the chart below, most people come directly to their website:

Tech Stack

• Backend: Ruby on Rails
• Frontend: jQuery