6 reasons for bootstrapping before accepting VC money
Published in 2010, this chronicle by @arnorhs details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 7 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 1 comments
One thing to consider is there is a danger of bootstrapping your way out of the nice little pigeon holes that VCs build to make decisions. They don't know what to do with you if you haven't been through the "normal" steps they are use to. Not only that but they can't get the kind of slice of the pie they normally get on the terms they have boilerplates for and get frustrated.
Not that it should discourage you from bootstrapping as it is still a valid way of doing things. I am sure there is ludacris amounts of investment out there that doesn't worry about the norm.