I'll nominate GoPro as case where bootstrapping's quirky virtues helped make everything click. Doug Woodman's basic idea dates back to 2002 or maybe earlier. Hi

I'll nominate GoPro as case where bootstrapping's quirky virtues helped make everything click. Doug Woodman's basic idea dates back to 2002 or maybe earlier. His early iterations of ultra-mobile cameras were slightly successful but not yet the winning version. By poking around, subject to the uniquely loose/tight constraints of what he could fund selling beads (!) and early prototypes, he bought himself a lot of time to try to get it right. Perhaps it was a case of available technology needing the better part of a decade to catch up to his vision. With a big, impatient burst of SV funding at the start, version 1.0 of GoPro might have been a Segway-like flop.