Output > Outspend

In a world where startups typically correlate speed with spending, we’ve historically gone against the grain and have taken the opposite path: proving that deep investment in infrastructure and customer insight can outpace a flashy frontend and ad spend. We’ve raised largely bootstrapped the company from the internal funds, and have taken on 10x less than every single one of our competitors — and we still outpace them in growth and retention, and no one can touch our tech.
After a year+ of giving our product away for free so we could talk to as many people as possible, we launched monetization. Just nine months later, we surpassed $1.2 million ARR and continue to scale over 20% month-over-month.

The Costly Allure of Outspend

We founded Surmount in 2020. We’ve seen the entire roller coaster of private market liquidity flow. From millions of dollars getting thrown around everywhere, to deal activity hitting its lowest level since 2016. We definitely had FOMO watching other companies get funded, but our strategy has always been to plant seeds that will eventually create powerful distribution channels and scale effectively. I’m a 4th generation small town entrepreneur – the concept of throwing tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars on a whim is insane to me. To this day, we have spent less than $80k on marketing efforts, yet we collectively achieve over 10m (and growing) organic impressions per month right now, resulting in a strong top of funnel.

Many people don’t know this, but Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger actually had a 3rd partner at one point. You know what the difference between them and him was? He was in a rush and used a lot of leverage. Strangely, most VCs seem to have it completely backwards and want you to act like the guy in a rush. 

We’re building a great company in one of the world’s largest industries in the midst of a huge shift from traditional, human-to-human methods, to software & data running the finance world. I have 0 doubt that we’re going to build an extremely successful company. And when we reach that point, there are going to be a lot of other companies that are owned and operated by multiple external investment companies. Check the data on founder-led businesses. That’s my approach.

A Leaner Approach to Fundraising

We embraced the Lean Startup methodology’s emphasis on validated learning and just-in-time scalability through MV and optimizing every dollar with continuous build-measure-learn loops. Rather than pursuing large pre-seed rounds, we intentionally capped our raise out of Techstars, leaning on sweat equity, open-source tools, and a network of early adopters to drive development. By refusing to chase headline-grabbing checks, we maintained control, minimized dilution, and remained laser-focused on solving real user problems.

Building the Stack Before the Headlines

Contrary to the YC mantra of “make something people want” overnight, we spotted an issue then spent a full year frantically architecting end-to-end data pipelines and trading infrastructure to ensure our entire stack was resilient from day one – hoping that no one else saw the same thing and was spending the same amount of effort to fix it.
This discipline echoes Eric Ries’s “just-in-time scalability” concept, but flipped: we built for scale before chasing scale, and prioritized robustness over a large MVP launch, allowing us to onboard complex clients—student-managed funds, RIAs, and individual investors— and learn from them, without massive fires under the hood that could affect our ability to scale later on.

Research, Not Ads

Instead of funneling tens of thousands into paid advertising, we hunted down our potential users and talked their ears off, learning what truly moved the needle. Our approach was inspired by YC’s “do things that don’t scale” advice to Airbnb —direct outreach, bespoke demos, and real-time feedback loops that no ad campaign could match. The result: user acquisition costs that are a fraction of the industry average and retention rates that climb month after month.

Defying Conventional Launch Timelines

We deliberately bucked the belief that you must “launch in a night and hustle for users” by spending an entire year giving our platform away for free to strategic early partners. This deep engagement phase, though slow to generate revenue, yielded insights that accelerated our product-market fit. Nine months after we flipped to paid plans, ARR crossed $1.2 million, with 20%+ monthly growth—proof that in some cases, patient, insight-driven launches can outperform blitz-scaling tactics. 

Monetization and Metrics That Matter

While competitors tout eye-watering burn multiples, we focus on efficiency: output over outspend. By investing in the right infrastructure and listening first, we aim to deliver a product that users love and pay for. 

Conclusion: Choosing the Right Rules

Our journey shows that breaking the unspoken startup rules—raising less, building deep, and prioritizing customer dialogues—can yield outsized results. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense for every company, and admittedly, it probably doesn’t. I believe this worked for Surmount because there was (still is) a massive gap in the space and we had extremely high confidence that if something like what we’ve built existed, it would have the potential to generate tremendous value for millions of people – then we just have to figure out how to market it. 

This isn’t about being contrarian for its own sake; it’s about believing that output beats outspend when you choose to build the best company in the space, not just the flashiest. In the end, it’s the depth of your infrastructure and the quality of your relationships that determine true scale.