I have a very similar problem. We have built a system for building niche websites for collectibles and plan on scaling horizontally - adding new collectibles in a similar way to the way you add universities and re-using the same code to power each niche.
We're making some money on the trial niche ($5000/ MRR and growing) and have our first 100K monthly users close to product/market fit (78% would be "very unhappy" to lose us).
Just like you guys, we don't really know where to go next. Right now, we plan on bootstrapping (we both work full time for well-known firms so all the revenue goes to contractors) but raising a "real" seed round could change everything.
Just like you, we have no idea if we should raise a seed, crowdfund (people LOVE their collections and we made 10K in 3 days in a small crowdfund) or continue to bootstrap.
Not sure it matters, but coming from someone in a very similar place - we are rooting for you!
We're making some money on the trial niche ($5000/ MRR and growing) and have our first 100K monthly users close to product/market fit (78% would be "very unhappy" to lose us).
Just like you guys, we don't really know where to go next. Right now, we plan on bootstrapping (we both work full time for well-known firms so all the revenue goes to contractors) but raising a "real" seed round could change everything.
Just like you, we have no idea if we should raise a seed, crowdfund (people LOVE their collections and we made 10K in 3 days in a small crowdfund) or continue to bootstrap.
Not sure it matters, but coming from someone in a very similar place - we are rooting for you!