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You are right that any truly transformative tech company has raised outside money. However, it seems like there is a shadow tech scene comprised of substantial

You are right that any truly transformative tech company has raised outside money. However, it seems like there is a shadow tech scene comprised of substantial companies that have self funded. e.g. CSN Stores - $300MM+ annual revenue/ bootstrapped MailChimp - Approaching $100MM/ bootstrapped Club Penguin - $350MM acquisition, heard they had a little angel money, but no VC Ganz/Webkinz - Kind of a startup within a small manufacturing biz, but they have mid 9 figures in revenue. SparkFun/iFixit - Both $20+MM in revenue with no outside investment. Provocraft has $100MM+ in virtual good sales Granted, most of these aren't household names in the tech world, but all thrive based on web tech. I'm sure there are others beyond the ones I know, but there seems to be a playbook that can get a company to $100MM+ without VC. In closing, I agree with your thesis, and Sequoia's old homepage would back you up 100%, but do you think companies like the ones above are just outliers or are not successful enough?

tonystubblebine 15y ago
Two more for your list. SAS - Would be in the Fortune 500, I think, if it wasn't privately owned. 37signals - Bezos investment aside, they certainly behave like a privately owned tech company.
pg 15y ago
A combination of both. If you constructed a list of the top technology companies, few to zero of these would appear on it.
- robg 15y ago
  Do you wish you had raised VC for Viaweb and grown it to be "bigger"? How much bigger would you have had to grow it to get a better exit personally? Bose is at least one counterexample, it seems. However, don't the most successful private companies have little incentive to release the information you say is necessary for the comparison?
  - pg 15y ago
    Actually I wish I had raised less. But I wasn't trying to make Viaweb into one of the top technology companies.
holdenc 15y ago
Right -- and these are all companies with multi-millions in revenue. There are many other companies, many with only one founder, that are doing $200K+ with no funding. And these people are often treated like tech-world outsiders! When I lived in NYC there were tech community events filled with people trying to launch an idea with no traction (ie. users, customers) and in many cases these events required an invite! I have more than one profitable bootstrapped web app and I can't get an invite!

tonystubblebine 15y ago

Two more for your list. SAS - Would be in the Fortune 500, I think, if it wasn't privately owned. 37signals - Bezos investment aside, they certainly behave like a privately owned tech company.

pg 15y ago

A combination of both. If you constructed a list of the top technology companies, few to zero of these would appear on it.

robg 15y ago
Do you wish you had raised VC for Viaweb and grown it to be "bigger"? How much bigger would you have had to grow it to get a better exit personally? Bose is at least one counterexample, it seems. However, don't the most successful private companies have little incentive to release the information you say is necessary for the comparison?
- pg 15y ago
  Actually I wish I had raised less. But I wasn't trying to make Viaweb into one of the top technology companies.

holdenc 15y ago

Right -- and these are all companies with multi-millions in revenue. There are many other companies, many with only one founder, that are doing $200K+ with no funding. And these people are often treated like tech-world outsiders! When I lived in NYC there were tech community events filled with people trying to launch an idea with no traction (ie. users, customers) and in many cases these events required an invite! I have more than one profitable bootstrapped web app and I can't get an invite!