Congratulations, you've discovered a tiny business!
Hey there,
I'm Jesse, the Founder of Bento!
About four years ago, I wrote first line of code for Bento in a little cafe in Tokyo.
git commit -am "setting up rails"
The idea at the time was simply to create a tiny side business that could act as the vessel for me to learn Ruby on Rails, an amazing coding language, while simultaneously solving my own problems that I was facing as a full-time marketer.
And for the first few years, Bento was exactly that.
As I worked with my own clients, I would often run into problems I couldn't solve with the other many marketing tools at my disposal, and found myself inspired to develop my own marketing software that could both consolidate my toolbelt and solve these complex problems my way.
Each problem I faced in the wild would help me gain more confidence in my own development skills, while also enabling Bento to continue growing in scope. If I ever got stuck I would bring on contractors, developers, and others much smarter than me to lend a hand building features. Bento couldn't be what it is today without the help of my friends.
We were growing little by little each month until some point during 2021, when I woke up and realised that Bento had succeeded to evolve far beyond what I originally set out to build. Even so, at the heart of it all, it still had the same, aspiring core.
We now have a passionate customer base, a product with a stack of extremely opinionated features, we are growing profitability, and I am still learning every single day. We have also found ourselves firmly nestled within a product category (email marketing and marketing automation) so marketing Bento to new users has become so much easier, too.
The dream!
Now, Bento has become my full-time job and I'm extremely grateful for everyone who has supported the product's evolution - from a solo side project started in a cafe in Tokyo, to a serious competitor in the marketing automation space.
At this stage in the business, others may feel it's natural to "take it to the next level" but that's not what I want for Bento. In my experience, growth always comes at a cost.
I want Bento to continue being my personal vessel for learning - I want to remain inspired, and to continue working with people much smarter than me on a daily basis. I want Bento to be something that serves my own family for years to come.
That's why we're commited to staying a tiny business.
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Being a tiny business means ensuring we don't grow at a rate that's faster than what we can keep up with.
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It means investing more in customer support than we do in growth.
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It means not counting the minutes when helping a customer solve a problem.
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It means doing stuff for the fun of it or just because we can.
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It means trying out new ideas because our customers need them.
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It means being able to tell your team they have someone they can reach out to when they have a question about a tool they're using.
You deserve to work with people who remember you and know you by name, not people who obsess about what their stock options are worth.
You deserve Bento.
If you're reading this, and you're not a customer yet, we can't wait to get to know you in our community, serve you, and grow our businesses together.
If you're reading this, and you ARE a customer, thank you. Your support keeps this business alive, my family fed, and me learning.
I'll see you in the Discord,
