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But did Amazon out-compete due to VC funding or due to a recognition that the fundamental nature of what a book store is was about to change.
by vanattab 10y ago
But did Amazon out-compete due to VC funding or due to a recognition that the fundamental nature of what a book store is was about to change.
- busterarm 10y agoCould an early-stage bootstrapped business even take advantage of the latter?
- mdorazio 10y agoIn Amazon's case? I doubt it. The costs associated with starting and scaling a business like Amazon are just too high to bootstrap effectively. But a SaaS company or software product company (i.e. change "bookstore" to something else)? Absolutely.
- tim333 10y agoAmazon was started in a bootstrapish way with about $200k from Bezos, his parent and loans. The code was written in C by Bezos and two other guys in his garage. Once they launched they had to raise money to scale though.
- rorykoehler 10y ago$200k is not bootstrapping. That's still a great amount for a seed round in most places in the world.
- Lordarminius 10y ago$200k CAN BE bootsrapping. Bootstrapping is running your business with personal funds and not receiving or accepting external money. By this definition Bezos was not bootstrapped.
- rorykoehler 10y agoYou're right. There should be a another terms for it though because 200k is 200k if you put it in yourself or took it from a VC. The last company I started we had €20 starting capital which we spent on a domain name and a server. Clearly there is a huge difference between those 2 cases as we had to be profitable from day 1.
- Lordarminius 10y agoI agree. Bootstrapping has come to connote "small sums" as opposed to self-funding.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]