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> I am taking zero VC, and that will allow me to make money on as few as three clients. A VC would give you legitimacy to help you get the customers you need.

> I am taking zero VC, and that will allow me to make money on as few as three clients. A VC would give you legitimacy to help you get the customers you need. What large customers are going to back you with their business unless they know there's some deep pockets behind you? There are few things more valuable than a business's source code, it encapsulates all of their business processes and is how all of the business's data is accessed. Why would a company want to entrust you with this? How are you protecting against data loss, and the legal liability that comes with this responsibility (insurance, legal)?

gavinhoward 3y ago
You make good points. My VCS is designed for self-hosting, not cloud. I will support customer installations, not host customer source code. I am hoping that customers see less of a need for deep pockets in that case.
- Spivak 3y ago
  This is a tried and true method of bootstrapping a SMB. Sell the bits in a box with support until you are big enough to sell the service (or don't).
withinboredom 3y ago
I mean, insurance is cheap. I have professional insurance allowing me to personally do several million in damages due to a mistake. Or recover your losses if I give bad advice. All for the low cost of 50 bucks per month, purchased through a local dev-co-op. Trust isn’t built by who backs you though. Does it make it an easier sell? Maybe, but as a buyer, if that’s what you’re leaning on to sell to me, I’m going to be put off. If it comes down to two, I’d trial both and care about how well it does before caring about who is backing who. In the end, I might choose the smaller company and negotiate access to source code to hedge them going under. And that sounds like an even better deal than some VC’s trying to “monetize the fuck out of me” in three years.
- gavinhoward 3y ago
  Oh, how might I find that professional insurance? Even though I am not going to host, I'd like something like that.

gavinhoward 3y ago

You make good points. My VCS is designed for self-hosting, not cloud. I will support customer installations, not host customer source code. I am hoping that customers see less of a need for deep pockets in that case.

Spivak 3y ago
This is a tried and true method of bootstrapping a SMB. Sell the bits in a box with support until you are big enough to sell the service (or don't).

withinboredom 3y ago

I mean, insurance is cheap. I have professional insurance allowing me to personally do several million in damages due to a mistake. Or recover your losses if I give bad advice. All for the low cost of 50 bucks per month, purchased through a local dev-co-op. Trust isn’t built by who backs you though. Does it make it an easier sell? Maybe, but as a buyer, if that’s what you’re leaning on to sell to me, I’m going to be put off. If it comes down to two, I’d trial both and care about how well it does before caring about who is backing who. In the end, I might choose the smaller company and negotiate access to source code to hedge them going under. And that sounds like an even better deal than some VC’s trying to “monetize the fuck out of me” in three years.

gavinhoward 3y ago
Oh, how might I find that professional insurance? Even though I am not going to host, I'd like something like that.