Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

While there is a large gap in the two models in terms of finances, operations and everything else, trying to argue that customers should pick your company purely because you haven't raised money shows that you are either deliberately being insincere or know nothing about the industry, neither of which are great selling points.

If you want to compete, do it on the basis of features and value.

Re: Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

#5

Post by jascination » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 11:58 PM UTC

It's a cute quote, but it seems about 5 years out of date. There was a golden period for a while there that indie hackers and self-funded devs could create a useful product and grow it themselves and could 'beat' VCs.

But now you can create some AI generated slop in a day that used to take months. Being an indie hacker used to be a sort of badge of honour, now it's where everyone starts.

I think the VC-backed companies who have budgets to do actual marketing, actual sales, actual outreach beyond "I have a good following on X, I'm gonna sell them stuff" will win in the end.

As a customer, for me I don't care whether the company is profitable, I care about whether it works, whether it's in my budget, whether the company will be around in 2 years regardless of if the founder loses their passion for it.

Re: Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

#6

Post by nullderef » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 12:07 AM UTC

jascination wrote: post #5

It's a cute quote, but it seems about 5 years out of date. There was a golden period for a while there that indie hackers and self-funded devs could create a useful product and grow it themselves and could 'beat' VCs. But now you can create some AI generated slop in a day that used to take months. Being an indie hacker used to be a sort of badge of honour, now it's where everyone starts. I think the VC-backed compani…

I've recently started an indie hacker journey and cannot emphasize how much work it takes. It's incredibly hard to develop the technical side, listen to feedback to improve the product/UX, do SEO, viral marketing, and more.

Hiring more people seems necessary to stay sane -- at least for my project. But you need money for that, which you won't have for a long time. Even tools for all these aspects (Claude, Revid.ai, ahrefs, etc) stack up in subscription costs.

Maybe this is just because I'm getting started, though.

Re: Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

#7

Post by mikigraf » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 12:09 AM UTC

jascination wrote: post #5

It's a cute quote, but it seems about 5 years out of date. There was a golden period for a while there that indie hackers and self-funded devs could create a useful product and grow it themselves and could 'beat' VCs. But now you can create some AI generated slop in a day that used to take months. Being an indie hacker used to be a sort of badge of honour, now it's where everyone starts. I think the VC-backed compani…

100%. We tried to compete with a few VC-funded startups and they all have been able to outgrow us while we struggled to get enough money for SOC2.

Re: Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

#8

Post by nozzlegear » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 12:11 AM UTC

jascination wrote: post #5

It's a cute quote, but it seems about 5 years out of date. There was a golden period for a while there that indie hackers and self-funded devs could create a useful product and grow it themselves and could 'beat' VCs. But now you can create some AI generated slop in a day that used to take months. Being an indie hacker used to be a sort of badge of honour, now it's where everyone starts. I think the VC-backed compani…

I tend to be wary of AI slop products as well, but I don't think indie developers are particularly more prone to creating AI slop than VC-backed devs. It seems to me that AI has lowered the barrier to entry for creating slop products for indie devs. On the other end of the spectrum, the number of VC-backed SaaS products out there that haven't completely pivoted to becoming some kind of AI wrapper is approximately zero.

Regarding the topic at hand, I'm more likely to purchase something that's not VC-backed, and does not mention AI at all these days.

Re: Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

#9

Post by guywithahat » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 12:16 AM UTC

It’s cool seeing a Houston startup too; I feel like the only ones I’ve ever seen have been self-funded

Re: Are you VC-funded? No, we're profitable

#10

Post by recursive » Wed, Mar 19, 2025, 12:21 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #4

VC-funded startups go out of business. Bootstrapped startups go out of business. While there is a large gap in the two models in terms of finances, operations and everything else, trying to argue that customers should pick your company purely because you haven't raised money shows that you are either deliberately being insincere or know nothing about the industry, neither of which are great selling points. If you wan…

As a customer, I might be interested to know if a vendor can continue to exist if they achieve only moderate success.