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You raise money to pay for costs of running the business. If you couldn't raise money, then only people who are already extremely rich would be able to start a

You raise money to pay for costs of running the business. If you couldn't raise money, then only people who are already extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size, let alone one that requires deploying physical hardware in multiple regions. Good luck getting even four regions for less than $1M. The world would be far worse off if all tech businesses had to be bootstrapped. That being said, there's certainly many businesses that raised too much money based on bullshit, had the founders take money off the top, and then have to drastically change to become sustainable, especially in the ZIRP era. But I don't see that happening here.

KptMarchewa 3y ago
To add to it, without external funding _any_ innovation would be stifled by existing players. If you can't even get low millions in funding, existing corporations with tens of billions of free money will eat you alive. Organically growing a business; bootstrapping sounds fine, until you try to do something that potentially has any global impact.
- heipei 3y ago
  It's funny to hear this in this context. Fly is treated as one of the few potential successors to Heroku, and Heroku raised very little money while remaining the number one choice for most devs here (based on sentiments). And then an existing corporation with tens of billions of free money came along, bought Heroku ... and ran it into the ground. So I don't buy that you need to fundraise or else be outpaced, at least not by big corporation.
  - stepbeek 3y ago
    To be fair, they do call out in the article that they're hosting on their own hardware. Afaik Heroku has always been hosted on AWS which is a lot less capital-intensive than buying hardware. Also, Heroku was acquired in 2010. I know that the prevailing sentiment around here is that the acquisition was a mistake, but Heroku has been owned by Salesforce for 13 of it's 16 years of life...
vlovich123 3y ago
You can offset burn rate with more skills. Putting a few machines in multiple regions is fairly cheap. If you’re ok doing the ops yourself, you can get buy on a shoe string budget. I know. A startup I was part of did this ten years ago and the tooling to do this has only gotten easier and better. To be clear, I’m not saying that venture is intrinsically evil, but also companies are explicitly trading off higher burn rates and higher raise rounds to reduce the need to build all of this in house. That’s not a bad idea because it’s usually better for the business to scale as quickly as the sales channel can fill it rather than be stuck on difficult engineering roadblocks.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
> If you couldn't raise money, then only people who are already extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size, let alone one that requires deploying physical hardware in multiple regions You’re describing the current state of the world We’re there already. The entire system is built to exploit everybody who does not have significant capital to fight back against it
- Zetice 3y ago
  I am so curious why you repeatedly spit in the collective face of the millions of small business owners in the US and around the world. If what you say were true, the world would exist as a series of 3-5 megacorps, and small businesses would not exist. Since they do exist, how do you square that with your claim that only the "extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size" is currently true?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - garrickvanburen 3y ago
    I agree, most businesses are very small. Large businesses and especially very large businesses are the exception. 4.7M of the 8M US businesses have <5 employees. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/small-business-week.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/small-business-week.... Starting a business requires little more than filing incorporation documents with your state. Growing a business to dominate a market and get crazy rich may require outside funding, but growing a business to support and maintain your individual lifestyle does not.
  - matwood 3y ago
    I would also add to your point that starting a business is easier than it has ever been. While far from perfect, the internet has been an amazing equalizer.
    - ethbr0 3y ago
bombcar 3y ago
Just buy an ASIN and use a VPS provider than understands them. You are now multihomed.

KptMarchewa 3y ago

To add to it, without external funding _any_ innovation would be stifled by existing players. If you can't even get low millions in funding, existing corporations with tens of billions of free money will eat you alive. Organically growing a business; bootstrapping sounds fine, until you try to do something that potentially has any global impact.

heipei 3y ago
It's funny to hear this in this context. Fly is treated as one of the few potential successors to Heroku, and Heroku raised very little money while remaining the number one choice for most devs here (based on sentiments). And then an existing corporation with tens of billions of free money came along, bought Heroku ... and ran it into the ground. So I don't buy that you need to fundraise or else be outpaced, at least not by big corporation.
- stepbeek 3y ago
  To be fair, they do call out in the article that they're hosting on their own hardware. Afaik Heroku has always been hosted on AWS which is a lot less capital-intensive than buying hardware. Also, Heroku was acquired in 2010. I know that the prevailing sentiment around here is that the acquisition was a mistake, but Heroku has been owned by Salesforce for 13 of it's 16 years of life...

vlovich123 3y ago

You can offset burn rate with more skills. Putting a few machines in multiple regions is fairly cheap. If you’re ok doing the ops yourself, you can get buy on a shoe string budget. I know. A startup I was part of did this ten years ago and the tooling to do this has only gotten easier and better. To be clear, I’m not saying that venture is intrinsically evil, but also companies are explicitly trading off higher burn rates and higher raise rounds to reduce the need to build all of this in house. That’s not a bad idea because it’s usually better for the business to scale as quickly as the sales channel can fill it rather than be stuck on difficult engineering roadblocks.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

> If you couldn't raise money, then only people who are already extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size, let alone one that requires deploying physical hardware in multiple regions You’re describing the current state of the world We’re there already. The entire system is built to exploit everybody who does not have significant capital to fight back against it

Zetice 3y ago
I am so curious why you repeatedly spit in the collective face of the millions of small business owners in the US and around the world. If what you say were true, the world would exist as a series of 3-5 megacorps, and small businesses would not exist. Since they do exist, how do you square that with your claim that only the "extremely rich would be able to start a business of any size" is currently true?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- garrickvanburen 3y ago
  I agree, most businesses are very small. Large businesses and especially very large businesses are the exception. 4.7M of the 8M US businesses have <5 employees. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/small-business-week.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/small-business-week.... Starting a business requires little more than filing incorporation documents with your state. Growing a business to dominate a market and get crazy rich may require outside funding, but growing a business to support and maintain your individual lifestyle does not.
- matwood 3y ago
  I would also add to your point that starting a business is easier than it has ever been. While far from perfect, the internet has been an amazing equalizer.
  - ethbr0 3y ago

bombcar 3y ago

Just buy an ASIN and use a VPS provider than understands them. You are now multihomed.