Bootstrapped Startups

“Funded startups fail when they run out of money. Bootstrap startups fail when the founders run out of motivation.”

“And frankly, they shouldn't be called a co-founder two years in. They're not They're not founding anything anymore. They are a business partner that is being added, and you can call them a founding engineer if they're coming on as an engineer or founding whate…”

“If you're a bootstrap business, your business lives and dies on the cash that you create. And so you have to create that cash as fast as possible.”

“My thing is, if you don't have millions of dollars and three to five years, To build a category, to start one, don't do it, right? And that's why most of us say it, because we have seen more, a lot more folks fail at it than not.”

“I've often said that funded startups fail when they run out of money, and bootstrap startups fail when the founder runs out of motivation.”

“And so for us, it seemed easier to go in a very competitive market. You know, there's demand but where we can just grab that small percentage of the market. And if we can manage to do that, that's already huge for us because, you know, we're so small, we don't…”

“VCs prefer bootstrapped, but they are not willing to give you credit on growth. That's how I'd summarize. They're not willing to say, oh, well, look, 50% growth is okay. It's because you didn't have money, but if I give you money, you'll accelerate to a hundre…”

“Is to make the economics work, it will have to be different than, certainly than Silicon Valley, but even than, like, the tiny seeds in the indie.vcs, you would be at a level, I would say a level lower, just in valuations, in order to make the economics ever w…”

“By ten million or so in ARR, you have convergent evolution. These paths converge. By ten million ARR, you have, if you bootstrap to ten million ARR, you're generating enough cash to hire all the VPs you want, ok?”

“A lot of successful bootstrap startups are unfortunately because they cannot invest and their growth is slowed down. When they do want to exit, they only can exit at like one X or 1.5 X of their ARR.”

“Oftentimes when I see bootstrapped or mostly bootstrap companies with three or four co-founders, usually they're too many. Usually there's at least one too many and there's like a weak link. There's someone who's not Maybe holding up there”

“In fact, there can be even added opportunity in big economic bust times. You'll see all, you know, how many great companies came out of 2001 that were Almost bootstrapped or just had tiny amounts of funding, and then once the economic cycle comes back, these t…”

“Like, if you read Zero to One, that book is written for, like, high-growth startups. It's got a lot of advice in there that's terrible if you're trying to bootstrap your way to success.”