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The answer is that money = time. Or better, money = speed. Money buys you an employee. Things get built faster. Money buys you a design. Things look better, f

The answer is that money = time. Or better, money = speed. Money buys you an employee. Things get built faster. Money buys you a design. Things look better, faster. Money buys you more servers. The site is faster. Money buys you tickets to X, where you can promote your site. Money buys you traffic. Money = speed. If you can add a very talented person to your 1-person startup, your chances for success suddenly multiply. If you can build a kick-ass team, your chances for success are way up there. The startups that "run out of money" don't really, usually, run out of actual money. It just means they couldn't build something successful and gave up on the idea, often because they had accumulated costs (employees, office, ...) that they couldn't pay for anymore. That doesn't mean the alternative is to have everyone work for pretty much free. That's called open source. Different story :) (I'm probably a little off here with my logic, it's late)

thewordpainter 16y ago
i'll preface this by saying that i up-voted peter because many of the points were totally valid. at the same time, i think money creates a distraction. i've been bootstrapping for almost 3.5 years. throughout the process, i've built a team of four that all shares equity, and we've recruited more than 25 interns from UGA to help us through the semesters. you know what my burn rate is? $50/month! i have one expense: hosting. no one has taken any pay because they believe in the mission & they're motivated by the vision we have. loren - i hear you my man. i think many of these YC companies will never learn what it means to be SCRAPPY. they won't understand how you can creatively finance things. oh, last thing...i'm currently the live-in advisor at my old fraternity house...i know how to get by on nothing. just imagine what i'll do on something... -adam
- petervandijck 16y ago
  Don't you think money would buy you speed? Also, your time may seem free now but it won't always feel like that.

thewordpainter 16y ago

i'll preface this by saying that i up-voted peter because many of the points were totally valid. at the same time, i think money creates a distraction. i've been bootstrapping for almost 3.5 years. throughout the process, i've built a team of four that all shares equity, and we've recruited more than 25 interns from UGA to help us through the semesters. you know what my burn rate is? $50/month! i have one expense: hosting. no one has taken any pay because they believe in the mission & they're motivated by the vision we have. loren - i hear you my man. i think many of these YC companies will never learn what it means to be SCRAPPY. they won't understand how you can creatively finance things. oh, last thing...i'm currently the live-in advisor at my old fraternity house...i know how to get by on nothing. just imagine what i'll do on something... -adam

petervandijck 16y ago
Don't you think money would buy you speed? Also, your time may seem free now but it won't always feel like that.