5 ms·
bootstrapping sounds cool and i’ve done that for many years. at some point you need money to grow because hiring people is super expensive and/or risky and mark
by b20000 5y ago
bootstrapping sounds cool and i’ve done that for many years. at some point you need money to grow because hiring people is super expensive and/or risky and marketing is not free either. so if you cannot generate enough cash to pay for that you are stuck. you are then basically still juggling all the work yourself perhaps with your cofounder and no investor will touch you because they think you are weird or don’t want to work with people even though the business is valid and the potential is huge given a investment. most investors are not very smart, have little operating experience and are not very good at listening. looking back i would never start a company again with my own money as the journey is brutal. i would rather have an investor on board, be able to hire people and pay myself rather than being broke for many years and working myself to death.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agoI mean companies like MailChimp became a billion dollar company without any of that. I think it can still work but most people have blinders on.
- b20000 5y agonot sure how bootstrapping works today, marketing is really expensive. i don’t believe organic SEO works anymore. so you need to buy ads which is $$$$$.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agonot really just look at canny.io https://twitter.com/sarahhum/status/1461378442256072712 https://twitter.com/sarahhum/status/1461378442256072712
- b20000 5y agonot sure what I'm looking at. Do you mean that canny is an example of a startup that "made it" without spending money on marketing? or do you mean that I should use canny for marketing? If it's the former, how do you know they did not spend money on marketing and that their user base grew "magically" just because the product is great? also, 9 person team right from day 0 without funding. I wonder how that happened. people create great products all the time that get no traction.
- ilrwbwrkhv 5y agothey are an example of "bootstrapping works". the founders created enough revenue to slowly hire that team. they didn't have that from day 0. again, this is how actual real sustainable businesses are created. they can raise money now if they want, not the ones with 0 revenue.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoImagine trying to bootstrap a semiconductor or EV company. Or a rocket company.
- zozbot234 5y agoA semiconductor or EV company is not borrowing to chase "hyper growth", though. They need that money to literally set up shop.
- devoutsalsa 5y agoHaving worked for a semiconductor startup (Transmeta) that raised $500-ish million, I can assure you they spent plenty on marketing.
- b20000 5y agosetting up shop is not enough. sooner or later you need to pay for marketing which costs a lot of money. all this worth of mouth viral shit is BS IMHO.
- b20000 5y agoi am in the hardware business, so pretty close