Chestnut: Mailchimp rejected venture capital due to uniform scare-tactic pitches
Ben Chestnut · (July 2021) Ben Chestnut: From Side Business to $12 Billion – The Accidental Triumph of Mailchimp · Aug 25, 2025 · at 37:34
Mailchimp co-founder Ben Chestnut explains why the company chose to remain bootstrapped rather than accept venture capital investment in 2007.
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“You know, for the first two, I started to think about it, because I really believed their pitches, and then by the 10th one, I realized they were all saying the same thing, they were all using the same playbook and it was always a scare tactic, like, if you don't take our money, you're just gonna peter out and die, and so we just, I guess, more stubbornly than anything just didn't want to take their money because of that. We never liked their approach.”
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