Both approaches can work, but lead to different outcomes. The market for "todo list" apps is absolutely big enough there's room for more than one company.
The beauty of the bootstrapped model is you don't need to "win the market" or "beat the competition". Is it making a profit? Congratulations! You're now the owner successful company. Want to grow the company? Re-invest the profits, not your personal life savings.
If the goal is to "win"... ya, you're probably going to need to spend money like it's someone else's, and should take that VC money.
The idea that a todo app is a capital intensive business is laughable. I have more impressive ideas that can be realized with much less money and that even includes hardware projects that would require hundreds of thousands in machine tools. All these guys really needed to do was make one really good iOS app and make sure they don't spend too much money on it.
> The idea that a todo app is a capital intensive business is laughable
It’s not just the building of the app that’s capital intensive - it’s the customer acquisition cost.
A highly capitalised startup with a war chest can afford to spend $100+ per customer. You can’t.
It’s like the OP thread says - you can’t field of dreams this. “If you build it they will come” is not a business strategy when your competitor is spending millions of dollars on ads.
The story is not 'save your money' frankly the story is 'have the most leverage'.
There's probably a lot more to it obviously, but it doesn't matter what this CEO did, he was going to be outgunned most likely.