81–90 of 159 posts
This is almost cool, unfortunately the product itself (a network of bots to allow websites to be scraped when they obviously don't want to be) seems a little shifty. For example, put these three exhibits together: Exhibit 1: The ScrapingBee terms and conditions state "We assume that you use the Website Platform and Services legally and ethically and that you have obtained permission, if necessary, to use it on the ta…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…
As another bootstrapped founder, I disagree with you. "Our standard terms are for 10-12% equity." The moment you give equity in exchange for money no matter whether its tinyseed or whatever, you are not bootstrapping. Your financial risk is lower because you don't have to pay this money back if your company fails. That is not called bootstrapping. I bootstrapped with my own money AND some smaller loans which I am ful…
Money is so sensitive! A Google millionaire bootstrapping on surveillance savings or a doctor taking favorable loans for starting a practice is different from say a college grad bootstrapping on no savings. Most SaaS is especially hard as there is typically no real revenue for ~years, compared to say B2B where each customer can easily pay for .5-5 people. So if operational expenses come from revenue, including sales/marketing/r&d, bravo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bootstrapping means you funded the entire thing out of pocket without any outside investment. There's nothing bad/wrong about how you did it, but it's not bootstrapping. Saying it is makes it confusing for newbies which means they're more likely to be taken advantage of by VCs that realize they can market themselves as a "bootstrapper fund."
Thinking about it in such binary terms is quite limiting and unhelpful though. It's a spectrum. I would consider ScrapingBee closer to a bootstrapped company than a venture-funded company. Heck, by your definition if I took $5k of friends & family money to start a business that grew to $5M ARR,I could not call that "bootstrapped". This is why Rob Walling (co-founder of TinySeed) likes to use the term "fundstrapped".…
That doesn't mean it actually is one though.
And actually muddying what terms mean is the unhelpful part.
Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now
Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…
To me, it's really important that the tech community define "bootstrapping" as no more and no less than "having a plan to reach profitability with total investment on the order of what a [not-outrageously-wealthy] group of founders might invest," and to frame it as a good thing . With TinySeed's round at "$120k for the first founder, $60k for the second, and $40k for the third" ( https://tinyseed.com/program#program-…
$120k USD is a lot of money for many international startups.
10-20 years ago it was also a lot of money for US startups to receive early in their journey.
So this definition is pretty pointless.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bootstrapping means you funded the entire thing out of pocket without any outside investment. There's nothing bad/wrong about how you did it, but it's not bootstrapping. Saying it is makes it confusing for newbies which means they're more likely to be taken advantage of by VCs that realize they can market themselves as a "bootstrapper fund."
Thinking about it in such binary terms is quite limiting and unhelpful though. It's a spectrum. I would consider ScrapingBee closer to a bootstrapped company than a venture-funded company. Heck, by your definition if I took $5k of friends & family money to start a business that grew to $5M ARR,I could not call that "bootstrapped". This is why Rob Walling (co-founder of TinySeed) likes to use the term "fundstrapped".…
They came from Tinyseed, why wouldn't they use "fundstrapped?" Because it doesn't sound as cool, and they know VCs aren't cool as far as the independence denoted by the term "bootstrapped" goes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thinking about it in such binary terms is quite limiting and unhelpful though. It's a spectrum. I would consider ScrapingBee closer to a bootstrapped company than a venture-funded company. Heck, by your definition if I took $5k of friends & family money to start a business that grew to $5M ARR,I could not call that "bootstrapped". This is why Rob Walling (co-founder of TinySeed) likes to use the term "fundstrapped".…
Then you can say "ScrapingBee is closer to a bootstrapped company". That doesn't mean it actually is one though. And actually muddying what terms mean is the unhelpful part.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thinking about it in such binary terms is quite limiting and unhelpful though. It's a spectrum. I would consider ScrapingBee closer to a bootstrapped company than a venture-funded company. Heck, by your definition if I took $5k of friends & family money to start a business that grew to $5M ARR,I could not call that "bootstrapped". This is why Rob Walling (co-founder of TinySeed) likes to use the term "fundstrapped".…
A 5 thousand dollar gift or loan? Or a trade of $5,000 for a percentage? Bootstrap is a word with a specific meaning. It is not a spectrum it is a specific state of a spectrum. It sounds like ScrapeBee has more bootstraping elements than VC elements. It's a hybrid. Less VC pressures but still some.
Congratulations! But maybe "bootstrapped" is not a 100% correct. > MAY 2020 - Joining Tinyseed > And this is precisely why we never decided to raise money. However, a few years ago, [...] An accelerator designed precisely to help people grow their business [...] The money and the support we got from the program helped us grow ScrapingBee into what it is now
Co-founder here, I was waiting for this comment to be honest. So in essence, if you consider that bootstrapping is building a business without external funding, you're correct. But to me, bootstrapping VS "VC road" is much more nuanced than this. Going the VC road forces you to have crazy growth and raise more round because the VC model only works if they fund unicorn 1 time out of 100(0). TinySeed works even if they…
Sure. But don't try and redefine what bootstrap means.
It means building your company without requiring any professional investors and without modifying your cap table.
You've done neither.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To me, it's really important that the tech community define "bootstrapping" as no more and no less than "having a plan to reach profitability with total investment on the order of what a [not-outrageously-wealthy] group of founders might invest," and to frame it as a good thing . With TinySeed's round at "$120k for the first founder, $60k for the second, and $40k for the third" ( https://tinyseed.com/program#program-…
Why is that a problem? Bootstrapping is a privilege, just like raising any VC funding is, yet nobody is fighting to change the term for Venture Capital funded startups. The meaning of which has been well established, both inside tech circles and outside, to mean starting a business without raising any outside capital. Why do we want to suddenly stretch the meaning of bootstrap? The compelling story here would have be…
Because VCs increase the risk that a company will turn to shit.