Comment by aussieguy1234
2 years ago
"Everyone wants investment from venture capitalists".
I have a bootstrapped side project, Tunnelmole, turning a small profit and growing at a slow and steady rate on its own. I'm the engineer so I only really pay hosting costs, which are covered by the revenue, although in the early days I had to cover this.
While venture capital is an option, if it continues to grow, it's entirely possible the venture capitalists may not be needed.
I work at a VC firm. If the business can finance itself, you absolutely don’t need VC cash. Ultimately, that’s the goal - build a profitable business.
The only reason I'd consider it, is to accelerate the current growth, beyond what I can drive myself.
But it depends how my own efforts go, there's still a long way to go before my current methods become ineffective.
The longer you go w/o raising money the better your position can be.
Unless you run out of cash
The very end of the article I think addresses this in a plain and direct way:
> 9. VC funding is cool and all, but essentially, it is a waste of time if you haven’t validated your market: bootstrapping to get paying customers quickly is the most effective tactic available.
> 10. In all honesty, you don’t want to take external funding unless you have intensely strong user growth; and being unable to hire becomes your bottleneck.
> unless you have intensely strong user growth
Or you have a business that needs capital to get going.
I address this in the second sentence when I explain that this puts you in the same category as many famous grifters.
The ending of the piece helps to confirm exactly what you said - really, you want to bootstrap unless you are going so gangbusters that a lack of quick cash is damaging your ability to grow.