| Hey [redacted], thanks for the thoughtful comments here. > One thing that is undeniable is that a bootstrap will always leave you in control at the end of the day. I agree bootstrapping gives you more say over which way you take the business, and hopefully that came across in my post (although I only mentioned it briefly). > I think a product should not be made for the potential profit it could amass but to fill a need for these users, listening to them feels like the next logical step to take (and most companies, even tremendously giant ones, still fail to do this I feel like). I agree we should be motivated by more than money. As I mention in the post, money is a bad master but a great servant. We need money to serve us, so we can feed our families and keep the lights on, but money itself shouldn't be the goal. I realise when taking funding this confuses the matter, as now you're not just responsible for your family, but for providing a return to your investors. I still believe it's possible to be mission-driven having taken funding, but understand it can complicate the matter. > Even more important than that is that it might not be the next unicorn, but that is absolutely fine for some people. They just want enough to feed themselves and their families while having a sane work life/rhythm of say 4-5 hours a day once you get it rolling. I agree the end goal for us is often spending time with those we love, whilst having that sense of purpose I mentioned in the post. We all want to leave some impact on the world, maybe that's a partner or children who know we loved them, maybe it's a few hundred paying customers who love your product, maybe it's some big swing towards a big dent in the world. My co-founder and I are relatively counter-cultural in the startup world, admittedly it's early days, but we don't work crazy hours as our belief is that the long hours are often busy work, not important work. If we can look after ourselves, not get burnt out, make wise decisions from a place of rest and do important deep work regularly, we believe we can outcompete any startup bro culture that works 80+ hour weeks. > I feel like the author used to somewhat adhere to this moto but somewhere along the way got lost and is now simply after the money for the sake of it. I don't believe that's the case, personally. My current wage is half that of 2 other contracting roles I was offered at the same time as this gig. I'm fully aware the vast majority of startups fail, so I'll very likely be out of pocket. I took the role as I admire my co-founder and wanted to learn from his product skills, an area I realised I needed to grow in. Before taking this role I used to work a full-time job, come home in the evenings and work on my side-hustle. For 3 years it meant I didn't really have a life outside of the day job and the side hustle. Now I normally work 8-4, home by 5 and have the evening to meet friends or relax. People often think taking funding means having less work/life balance, right now for me it's the opposite (again, caveat we're early days). |