Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Mares: Venture capital beats bootstrapping because elite talent is prohibitively expensive

Justin Mares · How to launch a $100M DTC brand | My First Million #194 · Jun 25, 2021 · at 28:05

Justin Mares reflects on the difference between running a bootstrapped shoestring budget company and a venture-backed company with a world-class team.

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“I think I will probably raise for most things that I do going forward or invest my own money just because, The caliber of the team that we were able to hire around us, like what we were doing on a shoestring budget versus what we could do after was just night and day. Like we have an amazing team, but amazing people are expensive. And so it's definitely like made my life a hundred times easier and more enjoyable getting to spend other people's money to increase the value of my equity by hiring amazing people. It's like, that seems like a no brainer to me in a lot of ways.”

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Disclosure
Mares made $15K-$18K monthly via Airbnb arbitrage in San Francisco in 2013
“In 2013, we had, like, the number third, like, the third ranked Airbnb in San Francisco, and so we were we were, like, renting out either our living room most nights, or you know, over summers, we'd rent it out for, like, 15, 18 grand a month, and then we just…”
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Disclosure
Mares acquired Shopify app FOMO for under $400K at $14K MRR
“A partner and I bought a Shopify app called FOMO. It was doing 14 K a month at the time we bought it. You know, we bought it. We paid less than 400.”
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