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Please can we move on to a better term than 'bootstrapping'. It is non specific, means little to non-HN peeps and is just hard on the ears. How about self-fundi

Please can we move on to a better term than 'bootstrapping'. It is non specific, means little to non-HN peeps and is just hard on the ears. How about self-funding?

Cyberdog 9y ago
If posts involving domain-specific jargon were not permitted on HN, this would be a very barren place.
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  There was already business domain specific terms for all of the many things people regard as bootstrapping. In this case it seems like it is a mildly successful agency already earning enough to pay 4 people, realising they could make more money a different way. Maybe this is just business, jargonphiles might call it 'pivoting'. Seems a world away from someone else 'bootstrapping' without 2 dimes to rub together from their garage. Or indeed the truth of many more of these stories that read like 'I made a good bit of money at my old job so took a year off and started a saas business with significant sums of my own cash'. Maybe I'm just bitter. I guess one thing people might want to bear in mind if they are not in the US, you may find senior finance people in the UK, for instance, totally bemused by this term if you find you want to stop bootstrapping and look for funding.
HumanDrivenDev 9y ago
As a fellow pedant who has complained about tech lingo before ('legacy' always makes my skin crawl a bit), what's wrong with 'bootstrapping'? The term has a fairly rich history in computing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Computing
- jimnotgym 9y ago
  I'll take your 'legacy' and raise you an 'on-premise' (as in not in the cloud). I assume Oracle and Microsoft marketing want us to believe that premise is the singular of premises? I'm afraid I think different... Bootstrapping does have a fairly rich history in computing. It has found an excellent meaning or two. Does it need another not quite analogous one? I dunno, I was in business and in Private Equity (at a very junior level) for a long while before I was in computers, and prefer the jargon of classic finance I guess. Likewise I don't like 'burn-rate' and 'runway' as the naive twins of 'cash-flows'. I could go on but my stuffy finance background is never likely to win me a popularity contest...

Please can we move on to a better term than 'bootstrapping'. It is non specific, means little to non-HN peeps and is just hard on the ears. How about self-funding?

Cyberdog 9y ago

If posts involving domain-specific jargon were not permitted on HN, this would be a very barren place.

jimnotgym 9y ago
There was already business domain specific terms for all of the many things people regard as bootstrapping. In this case it seems like it is a mildly successful agency already earning enough to pay 4 people, realising they could make more money a different way. Maybe this is just business, jargonphiles might call it 'pivoting'. Seems a world away from someone else 'bootstrapping' without 2 dimes to rub together from their garage. Or indeed the truth of many more of these stories that read like 'I made a good bit of money at my old job so took a year off and started a saas business with significant sums of my own cash'. Maybe I'm just bitter. I guess one thing people might want to bear in mind if they are not in the US, you may find senior finance people in the UK, for instance, totally bemused by this term if you find you want to stop bootstrapping and look for funding.

HumanDrivenDev 9y ago

As a fellow pedant who has complained about tech lingo before ('legacy' always makes my skin crawl a bit), what's wrong with 'bootstrapping'? The term has a fairly rich history in computing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Computing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Computing

jimnotgym 9y ago
I'll take your 'legacy' and raise you an 'on-premise' (as in not in the cloud). I assume Oracle and Microsoft marketing want us to believe that premise is the singular of premises? I'm afraid I think different... Bootstrapping does have a fairly rich history in computing. It has found an excellent meaning or two. Does it need another not quite analogous one? I dunno, I was in business and in Private Equity (at a very junior level) for a long while before I was in computers, and prefer the jargon of classic finance I guess. Likewise I don't like 'burn-rate' and 'runway' as the naive twins of 'cash-flows'. I could go on but my stuffy finance background is never likely to win me a popularity contest...