Ask HN: Will Bootstrapping See a Resurgence? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Will Bootstrapping See a Resurgence?

#11

Post by Timzzz » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 10:42 PM UTC

Yes. Yes. Yes. And I want to say that the next big thing amongst sane new entrepreneurs will be "Grant-strapping". Check out Rupak Doshi at TurboSBIR and AFWERX. Use Google and Linkedin. $250k cheques, equity free. No more incubators taking their cut for doing eff all.

There are SO many companies that have great products that are shut down because they are "zombies". Bullshit. They were sustainable, they had people earning money to grow their families, paying taxes to make the outside world happen.

They made one mistake. They just did not grow to the required venture size to be slaughtered by VC's and served to their friends.

Bury the tech. Bury the service. Drag down progress. I was in a startup that got offered $40m. The Investors said no, they wanted $400 Million. 3 months later. about 90 jobs lost and all that work vaporized. Customers absolutely bemused.

So bootstrapping is in. Will be big again. If folk are interested I have a ton of reading, material and resources I can share. It really is a mind over matter thing. And once you get to the stage to clearly say why you need investor money ( like if you want to do photonic pooling research and need lab equipment etc).

And actually makes more sense.

Bootstrapping forces discipline that the VC's dont want younger leaders to have. They want them to burn through cash and ask for more at a lousier evaluation so they can get more bang for their buck. And yes I witnessed that at first hand after that startup. As a programmer I should recognize patterns. Fail.

VC's are not evil people, they just do their job. Oddly they make your mom's pension funds work in many cases :-)

They should not make out that they are likeable though.

Re: Ask HN: Will Bootstrapping See a Resurgence?

#12

Post by Timzzz » Mon, Oct 02, 2023, 11:07 PM UTC

b20000 wrote: post #4

i bootstrapped a hw business and looking back i regret it. i thought i could raise at a better valuation later, and trusted this logic after reading about it on hackernews years ago. however what i found is that the investors i pitched once i had customers, were no longer interested because they thought the traction was too small, and they did not take into account the miniscule capital it took to get there and the i…

>> acquiring customers is not free

No it is not and you are right. In the fossil days of startups (1985 - 1995) you bootstrapped or literally built the first solution for a customer who is desperate for the solution. Oracle was launched like that. Larry was a contractor who built software for the CIA. One day Larry writes an RDBMS as defined by Stonebreaker. CIA wants information not software systems. Larry asks "can I go sell this to others, I know you paid for it all". They are like - for sure! Go for it!

After that it's pure conjecture. I think he secretly teamed up with Chuck Norris to form a late 80's Japanese Aesthetics and Cultural Appreciation group. After that he pipped Oprah to the post by giving away cars to people but I think for entireley the wrong reasons.

WebTV was launched on a $5000 cheque from a colleague. Sold 18 months later or something silly for $400m to Microsoft. Oh I will never forget the smile on Steve Perlman's face that day, lol.

But before I get lost in a Raymond Reddington anecdote -> Reframe the low revenue as "We could have had ten times that number of customer if you had funded the inefficiency in the market place and let us own it." It's kind of what Elon Musk did when ALL of his investors wanted to bury him and what they saw as a fast rising embrassment of what was Tesla. At that meeting he pretty much said "fuck it, I'l fund it and take all the upside myself." Next thing you know...no one wants to be that investor who said no.

Re: Ask HN: Will Bootstrapping See a Resurgence?

#13

Post by hyling » Tue, Oct 03, 2023, 3:41 PM UTC

Timzzz wrote: post #11

Yes. Yes. Yes. And I want to say that the next big thing amongst sane new entrepreneurs will be "Grant-strapping". Check out Rupak Doshi at TurboSBIR and AFWERX. Use Google and Linkedin. $250k cheques, equity free. No more incubators taking their cut for doing eff all. There are SO many companies that have great products that are shut down because they are "zombies". Bullshit. They were sustainable, they had people e…

Boot strapping is definitely my preferred route for many reasons including what you mentioned. I'm interested in learning more about how to use an existing userbase to create more products, pricing, and product / market fit. I'm almost done reading Monetizing Innovation and can't wait to try some of the things I've learned in the book. What else do you recommend reading?