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This is the way! As a fellow bootstrapper let me also add the infinite value of peace of mind. Your business is your own, and you can focus on earnings, quality

This is the way! As a fellow bootstrapper let me also add the infinite value of peace of mind. Your business is your own, and you can focus on earnings, quality of life, growth, what ever you like, without annoying VC:s and investors telling you what to do. As soon as you take in money, the businesses at some level, ceases to be yours. The only flaw is that with bootstrapping and one step at a time, it is more difficult to reach the unicorn-level, but as long as you are fairly successful and don't have infinite cravings and desires in terms of the life you want to live, the bootstrapping way is _the_ way.

steffoz 10mo ago
Unicorn-level sounds extremely stressful, happy to pass the burden to someone else. I seriously can't imagine a sane lifestyle that requires more money than what we already have.
- jacquesm 10mo ago
  Not only that, the vast bulk of unicorn wanna-be's end up failing (sometimes failing upwards though) and then it is all for nothing. Aiming for the middle ground: reasonable growth, good financial strategies based on unit cost profitability and a very tight hand on the purse will get you a solid business that can serve as the jump off point for many other things on top of giving the founders a much better shot at financial independence. This is all a variation on the risk/reward theme.
  - steffoz 10mo ago
    To be fair, it's rarely all for nothing for what I hear. Secondary stock sales [1] are very common and allow founders to take some big chips off the table. To me, it is more a matter of keeping things simple, manageable, safe and more fun for how I like to work :) https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/founders-guide-to-secondary-stock-sale https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/founders-guide-to-secondary...
    - jacquesm 10mo ago
      Sure, but your personal preferences have an outsized effect on your chances for success because they are very much aligned. I know plenty of founders that gave it all and then some (including their health, their family relationships and in some cases their lives) and that ended up worse than the shape they were in when they started. So yes, you hear a lot of stories about secondary stock sales and so on but those are the exceptions and very much not the norm. That's just survivorship bias.
      - bpt3 10mo ago
        Fellow small business owner here. Just as a reminder, discussing any successful (where successful is defined as not failed) business is a lesson in survivorship bias. Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years.
        lurk2 10mo ago
        > Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years. I hear this all the time with variations to the number of years, which makes me suspect it isn’t true.
        LastTrain 10mo ago
        What part do you suspect isn’t true?
        lurk2 10mo ago
        That a majority of businesses fail over a given duration of time. It’s probably true on a long-enough timescale, but the idea that the majority of businesses fail within one year or ten just seems completely dubious. How is a business defined? How is failure defined?
        LastTrain 10mo ago
switz 10mo ago
Fellow bootstrapper checking in. Made an ardent but delicate decision in 2015 not to raise money and ten years later I'm chugging along full-time on my business. Infinitely glad to have chosen this path. It was the right one for me.
- theturtletalks 10mo ago
  Same, I learned to code to build software for my business. I turned it into a SaaS and turned down investment because my original business was already profitable and making the SaaS better was making the business better. This is why I trust software made by people who come from that industry or have some background. I’ve seen too many startups where the founders are fresh out of college and have never worked in that niche and have never been in the shoes of the people they are trying to sell to. To me, that just means they are trying to get big and get acquired, I’m just a means to that end.

steffoz 10mo ago

Unicorn-level sounds extremely stressful, happy to pass the burden to someone else. I seriously can't imagine a sane lifestyle that requires more money than what we already have.

jacquesm 10mo ago
Not only that, the vast bulk of unicorn wanna-be's end up failing (sometimes failing upwards though) and then it is all for nothing. Aiming for the middle ground: reasonable growth, good financial strategies based on unit cost profitability and a very tight hand on the purse will get you a solid business that can serve as the jump off point for many other things on top of giving the founders a much better shot at financial independence. This is all a variation on the risk/reward theme.
- steffoz 10mo ago
  To be fair, it's rarely all for nothing for what I hear. Secondary stock sales [1] are very common and allow founders to take some big chips off the table. To me, it is more a matter of keeping things simple, manageable, safe and more fun for how I like to work :) https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/founders-guide-to-secondary-stock-sale https://www.startuphacks.vc/blog/founders-guide-to-secondary...
  - jacquesm 10mo ago
    Sure, but your personal preferences have an outsized effect on your chances for success because they are very much aligned. I know plenty of founders that gave it all and then some (including their health, their family relationships and in some cases their lives) and that ended up worse than the shape they were in when they started. So yes, you hear a lot of stories about secondary stock sales and so on but those are the exceptions and very much not the norm. That's just survivorship bias.
    - bpt3 10mo ago
      Fellow small business owner here. Just as a reminder, discussing any successful (where successful is defined as not failed) business is a lesson in survivorship bias. Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years.
      - lurk2 10mo ago
        > Most businesses of all sizes, shapes, and forms fail within 10 years. I hear this all the time with variations to the number of years, which makes me suspect it isn’t true.
        LastTrain 10mo ago
        What part do you suspect isn’t true?
        lurk2 10mo ago
        That a majority of businesses fail over a given duration of time. It’s probably true on a long-enough timescale, but the idea that the majority of businesses fail within one year or ten just seems completely dubious. How is a business defined? How is failure defined?
        LastTrain 10mo ago

switz 10mo ago

Fellow bootstrapper checking in. Made an ardent but delicate decision in 2015 not to raise money and ten years later I'm chugging along full-time on my business. Infinitely glad to have chosen this path. It was the right one for me.

theturtletalks 10mo ago
Same, I learned to code to build software for my business. I turned it into a SaaS and turned down investment because my original business was already profitable and making the SaaS better was making the business better. This is why I trust software made by people who come from that industry or have some background. I’ve seen too many startups where the founders are fresh out of college and have never worked in that niche and have never been in the shoes of the people they are trying to sell to. To me, that just means they are trying to get big and get acquired, I’m just a means to that end.