21–30 of 62 posts
> Not raising funds to stay small and happy But in this winner-takes-all reality, is that possible? If your business concept becomes successful, what prevents a bigger player to copy it, improve upon it, and steal away your customers?
Rarely comment, but definitely identify with this. Given HN's general focus on growth and funding, I think it's great/important for an article/concept like this to be given some reach. I find that there isn't enough critical thought given to why one ought to pursue an aggressive growth strategy. And that generally, staying small is seen as a failure to grow, rather than a conscious effort to grow in line with ones ow…
Startup is aimed at growth, to become next unicorn. If your business is not aimed at growth, then it is just regular business. YCombinator is incubator for startups, hence their HN site is aimed at startups too.
I also had these thoughts when I bootstrapped but the problem is not being able to hire a great team that can build something you would not be able to. If you’re all 3 single guys in 20s, enjoy 20s. When you’re married and have kids, then you’ll care about bills rather than lifestyle and retreats.
Depends how much you're making as a bootstrapper? If $10 or 15k a month isn't able to fund your lifestyle then you'll probably have problems later in life. Also, unless you're based in the Bay area / NYC / London, hiring people generally won't cost you $10k/mo per employee. Also, no one says you can't sell your bootstrapped business. A project generating $30k in profit can generally be sold for $1-1.3m. Reinvest that…
There are more businesses that are totally inappropriate for VC than should take VC money. The problem is everyone is equating tech businesses with VC. There are plenty of dead tech startups that actually have modest economics and would have worked if VC, and the high expenses of the top tier US talent, had been avoided.
Another note, something I’ve learned more recently. Some businesses won’t make more money even if you force more capital in to them. You can end up with a really good company that can be profitable for decades, but destroy it by force feeding it outside capital (VC or other.) It is important to identify this early.
Rarely comment, but definitely identify with this. Given HN's general focus on growth and funding, I think it's great/important for an article/concept like this to be given some reach. I find that there isn't enough critical thought given to why one ought to pursue an aggressive growth strategy. And that generally, staying small is seen as a failure to grow, rather than a conscious effort to grow in line with ones ow…
Startup is aimed at growth, to become next unicorn. If your business is not aimed at growth, then it is just regular business. YCombinator is incubator for startups, hence their HN site is aimed at startups too.
Rarely comment, but definitely identify with this. Given HN's general focus on growth and funding, I think it's great/important for an article/concept like this to be given some reach. I find that there isn't enough critical thought given to why one ought to pursue an aggressive growth strategy. And that generally, staying small is seen as a failure to grow, rather than a conscious effort to grow in line with ones ow…
Startup is aimed at growth, to become next unicorn. If your business is not aimed at growth, then it is just regular business. YCombinator is incubator for startups, hence their HN site is aimed at startups too.
> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
> Not raising funds to stay small and happy But in this winner-takes-all reality, is that possible? If your business concept becomes successful, what prevents a bigger player to copy it, improve upon it, and steal away your customers?
> Not raising funds to stay small and happy But in this winner-takes-all reality, is that possible? If your business concept becomes successful, what prevents a bigger player to copy it, improve upon it, and steal away your customers?
Its size can be as much a hindrance as a help. Big companies turn more slowly and are less likely to put out elegant ideas for the same reason a committee is.
Paul Graham writes about how his small online store was able to turn out features faster because he was leaner. I can't find it among his essays (http://paulgraham.com/articles.html) but Getting Real, a small book by the makers of Basecamp, says the same thing (https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real).
Building a small boot-strapped company vs a funded company is in a large part dictated by market and product rather than by individual intention. If you try to build a funded company in a space that can't sustain one you will struggle, likewise if you try to build a small bootstrapped company in a space that can you will similarly struggle. If your direct competitors have a much better product then you (because they…
> If your direct competitors have a much better product then you (because they have more dev/product/ux resources than you), a professional sales org, marketing machine, etc. then it's very hard to compete. Your acquisition costs and churn will be high which will severely hurt your ability to grow to a sustainable level. I would disagree. If the customers are comfortable with your product, and they don't feel a big r…
If you're in a moribund space you can get away with a MVP product for a long time, but if you're in a highly competitive space where your competitors have a significantly better product and a better sales team it has a real impact.
The other major factor driving churn in bootstrapped b2bs is they largely sell to SMEs who have a high-rate of insolvency.
> Not raising funds to stay small and happy But in this winner-takes-all reality, is that possible? If your business concept becomes successful, what prevents a bigger player to copy it, improve upon it, and steal away your customers?
> what prevents a bigger player to copy it, improve upon it Its size can be as much a hindrance as a help. Big companies turn more slowly and are less likely to put out elegant ideas for the same reason a committee is. Paul Graham writes about how his small online store was able to turn out features faster because he was leaner. I can't find it among his essays ( http://paulgraham.com/articles.html ) but Getting Real…
Big companies like Google know this, and often seem to structure themselves into small competitive groups.
Rarely comment, but definitely identify with this. Given HN's general focus on growth and funding, I think it's great/important for an article/concept like this to be given some reach. I find that there isn't enough critical thought given to why one ought to pursue an aggressive growth strategy. And that generally, staying small is seen as a failure to grow, rather than a conscious effort to grow in line with ones ow…
Startup is aimed at growth, to become next unicorn. If your business is not aimed at growth, then it is just regular business. YCombinator is incubator for startups, hence their HN site is aimed at startups too.