I want to be Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud
Published in 2010, this chronicle by @Tawheed 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 ★ 25 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 10 comments
"I realized that I was getting very fixated on the financial questions, and even worse was jumping to common solutions like “oh.. Just go look for funding.”"
I get so tired of people saying this. Looking for funding is a crapshoot. It's hard. It's grueling. It takes 2-3 months to even take a shot at it, and most people walk away empty handed. And no offense to the OP, but his businesses (on the surface) ARE NOT FUNDABLE. They aren't obviously huge opportunities. Given what he's posted about them, they don't have great traction. He's a single founder.
It makes me grumpy when people triumphantly declare that they aren't going to "choose" to get funded. Great companies fail to raise money all the time (if you want to read a truly outstanding post on the topic from a great company who did fail to raise money: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seomozs-venture-capital-process ).
The other gem in the post: "Of course I don’t want funding. Of course I should work on my ideas freely. I don’t want to take on any masters."
What the HECK makes you think that early stage investors won't let you work on your ideas freely? Or want to be your masters? At most, the OP's businesses MIGHT have a ghost's chance at angel funding. Angels don't sit on your board. Most of them have very full lives and a large portfolio of investments that they generally ignore. There are very few contractual protections for angels. Yeah, you might have to drop them an update every quarter or two.
Bootstrapping is a fine "choice" here, to be sure. It's a great way to build a business (and it's how I built my first one). But, this whole post doesn't really convey a good understanding of early stage financing (either getting funding or the realities of post-angel funding).
I would be cautious about airing these concerns in front of the same audience that you want to spend money on your products:
``` 1. Are Braintrust and Tout the right products? Will it make money for me? 2. Do I need to focus on one product to succeed? Is now the right time to focus?
``` It's hard to get too excited about using either of your products knowing that you're likely to kill one of them in six months.