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TarSnap and Pinboard are my favourite examples of businesses that don't need VC to succeed.

chubot 11y ago
Those are both essentially one person businesses as I understand. There are lots of bigger ones, like imgur, Github, Atlassian (I think), 37signals, Fog Creek, etc.
- fearless 11y ago
  Most of your examples have raised large amounts of VC funding. It's debatable whether they "need" the funding to success, but they certainly wanted it enough to eat the dilution.
  - seiji 11y ago
    With the above examples: imgur has raised $40 million and can barely keep one website running. GitHub has raised $350 million and can't seem to add new features or fix existing features. 37signals did fake funding just to get connections, but they at least isolated themselves and stopped trying to infect the rest of their world in their hype bubble.
    - empressplay 11y ago
      Hilarious! https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-...
  - chubot 11y ago
    They have raised, but they didn't raise until they were profitable -- that is, WELL past "default alive". They are remarkably different in this respect than essentially every YC startup. Pretty sure Fog Creek has never raised either, while having 50-100 employees. The overall point is that you don't have to be a one-person business to grow at a slower but "healthy" rate.
    - ghufran_syed 11y ago
      Interesting that Joel Spolsky himself wondered if this might be a bad thing: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-slow-death.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-...
- _delirium 11y ago
  Tarsnap now has two people. :) -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10058306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10058306
  - cperciva 11y ago
    Tarsnap was a one-person operation long past the point of reaching profitability though.
idlewords 11y ago
I am heavily dependent on VC as punching bag

Those are both essentially one person businesses as I understand. There are lots of bigger ones, like imgur, Github, Atlassian (I think), 37signals, Fog Creek, etc.

fearless 11y ago
Most of your examples have raised large amounts of VC funding. It's debatable whether they "need" the funding to success, but they certainly wanted it enough to eat the dilution.
- seiji 11y ago
  With the above examples: imgur has raised $40 million and can barely keep one website running. GitHub has raised $350 million and can't seem to add new features or fix existing features. 37signals did fake funding just to get connections, but they at least isolated themselves and stopped trying to infect the rest of their world in their hype bubble.
  - empressplay 11y ago
    Hilarious! https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-valuation-tops-100-billion-after-bold-vc-investment https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-...
- chubot 11y ago
  They have raised, but they didn't raise until they were profitable -- that is, WELL past "default alive". They are remarkably different in this respect than essentially every YC startup. Pretty sure Fog Creek has never raised either, while having 50-100 employees. The overall point is that you don't have to be a one-person business to grow at a slower but "healthy" rate.
  - ghufran_syed 11y ago
    Interesting that Joel Spolsky himself wondered if this might be a bad thing: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-slow-death.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/does-slow-growth-equal-...
_delirium 11y ago
Tarsnap now has two people. :) -> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10058306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10058306
- cperciva 11y ago
  Tarsnap was a one-person operation long past the point of reaching profitability though.

idlewords 11y ago

I am heavily dependent on VC as punching bag