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>“an alternative financing program that was aimed at slow-growth, bootstrapped founders” I have always understood 'bootstrapped' to mean self-financed by savin
by hermitcrab 6y ago
>“an alternative financing program that was aimed at slow-growth, bootstrapped founders”
I have always understood 'bootstrapped' to mean self-financed by savings/profits. I.e. pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Have VCs started co-opting that term as well now?
- sharkweek 6y agoI believe the point here is they didn’t want to fund companies that had taken any VC money yet, not necessarily that they wouldn’t ever.
- Ensorceled 6y agoYes, but the author is using "bootstrapped" in the past tense. i.e. a founder who was bootstrapped but might be willing to take money that didn't have a ton of strings and a set of "okay, now roll the dice on rocket growth with a do or die deadline" marching orders attached.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago> "okay, now roll the dice on rocket growth with a do or die deadline" From what I've seen this this is not the attitude most boostrappers have. Sure, sometimes you have bootstrapped companies that turn into VC-backed hypergrowth companies but there seems to be a shift away from "grow or die" for bootstrapped companies taking funding.
- EGreg 6y agoNo, Indie really meant it. I think. Wanted to fund the founders who were bootstrapped until that point. However, do not be surprised about co-opting. Co-opting by venture capitalists is normal. Many industries co-opt things as well, and redefine them to be mean something more “efficient”. Example: The terms friend and like were co-opted by Facebook. Now people say friend me and “please like my stuff” as a throwaway statement. These terms used to mean something deep and genuine up to 15 years ago. That’s what capitalism does - cheapens things and commoditizes them. Often, that is useful but sometimes it cheapens things you used to value highly.
- fractionalhare 6y agoEh...Facebook's use the word "friend" as a verb has not eroded my deep and meaningful sense of the word as a noun. It's just another use which has been added to our cultural context. It's up to you to let it change your perspective on friendship.
- EGreg 6y agoAnd what of liking things?
- mst 6y agoFor me, functions dual use, though grammatically both are similar enough that it operates significantly via context.
- fractionalhare 6y agoI don't know...what of it? I still like people, I still like things. Thumb and heart icons on social media haven't changed how or what I like. Semantically, I generally understand a person who says they "liked" a thing to mean the social media verb. Context also makes it pretty clear.