
What 6 years of bootstrapping a startup has taught me - helpstay
https://helpstay.com/journal/bootstrapping-your-startup/
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carlisle_
This blog post seems more like a marketing grab with generic platitudes than
it does genuinely helpful advice.

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dplgk
Like "For the first time in 40 years, the tide is starting to change".

Says who?

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jagged-chisel
> In essence, bootstrapping your startup is the new cool thing.

I feel like this minimizes an important truth: that taking investment tends to
mean losing control. Founders see that and want to maintain control.

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mLuby
That's why it's cool; coolness is value, independence, and self-control (lit.
"keeping your cool").

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jagged-chisel
Sure, I get that. And it _is_ cool. I just felt like the statement was a bit
too reductionist. Enough so to make the comment.

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ganeshkrishnan
I feel like an in-between/better option than bootstrapping or VC investment is
going for an accelerator or incubator. You get the all important human
connections, a bit of elbow room for money and a nice way to interact with
other fellow founders.

It still is a bit of stretch to get into an accelerator especially if you are
before product market fit or if the product is in an very "unsexy" space (like
supply chain).

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peterbell_nyc
I've usually seen most accelerators as an onramp to a venture backed business.
I've raised for a couple of startups and with one I went through an incubator
and it was great. Right now, I work from home, have a 3 year old and just went
all in on a very modest little lifestyle business. I can't imagine an
accelerator being much help, and given my goals for the business, I'd be a
waste of a slot in their cohort.

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algo_trader
Can u maybe share how much traction you had pre-accelerator and how much
traction u had before a bigger seed/SeriesA ?

My perception is at an accelerator or a $100K angel is really basically a nice
pitch + MVP + some token revenue or customer maybes.

I get it that if u are building yet-another-analytic-service, then the bar is
higher.

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jiveturkey
worthless article ... if you believe the title.

this has almost nothing to do with bootstrapping per se. i don't know if the
author is confused about it or just trying to draw clicks. decidedly untrue
statements like 'For the first time in 40 years, the tide is starting to
change' and 'when starting an enterprise' don't help. the fact that the
specific business being discussed is almost certainly not one that could
attract VC money _anyway_ also doesn't help the author.

a title that would make this article more reasonable is 'from side hustle to a
viable one-man business in 6 years'.

well, it's not specifically about side hustles either but it is reasonable
albeit generic advice for one-man shops (possibly with some replaceable helper
employees), for niche services such as skylight installer, gutter installer,
ikea assembler, or as in this case, a subscription based marketplace for very
tiny yet viable markets that can't be serviced adequately by large platforms.

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gramakri
Small typo. "Business is a discipline, you’re in it for the long hall". It
should be "long haul".

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danvoell
No, I think he means he is in it so that he can buy a house with a long
hallway. :)

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whycome
'Long hall' just gives me visions of death metaphors and "light at the end of
a tunnel"

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goatherders
"Build a business where you can do most tasks yourself"

That is literally NOT a business.

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zemvpferreira
Underrated comment. I have nothing against bootstrapping but a business that
you can’t easily sell or get away from, where you have no leverage on or
ability to fully delegate is closer to being a job than it is a business.

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goatherders
Somehow my original comment got downvoted, which is bizarre. I can only guess
it offended someone that thinks "creating work = creating a business."

There is NOTHING wrong with creating work for yourself if you get paid for it.
Half of my time is spent consulting and that is not a sellable or delegateable
"business." It's me selling my time. Lots of people do that and it is fine.

But starting a venture where you keep your arms around all of the critical
tasks is not building a business. A business is a set of systems and processes
that can be performed, managed, and recorded without reliance on a single
individual.

