[Retric]

Bootstrapping misses out on scale. Search engines need a massive index to get going. Uber is a less appealing product with fewer drivers covering a smaller area. The same is true for any websites which scale based on users or content creators etc.

It’s possible for bootstrapping to scale just as far, but it opens the door for competition to outgrow you very quickly.

[aaron-lebo]

Reddit faked users and content at the beginning, as the founders have stated. If you were building Reddit today, it's something that directly benefits from network effects, as does any social app or site. Search engines are difficult, but DuckDuckGo isn't a massive operation, and it doesn't take a ton of manpower to spider the web, nor was machine learning even really an option 10 years ago (not as easy as it is today). Sure, Uber is less appealing, but it's a very physical product. There are some businesses that require capital and scale, but to get a basic minimum viable app up is not something that takes a large crew.

You've got to make something that enables you to make a living, and then you scale up. If you have the option to get funding first and then build, yeah, it's probably a better way to do it because you'll be able to build in a lot more comfort and you'll be able to do more, but that's the whole point of bootstrapping, you bootstrap, then you grow.

It's that I can think of probably half a dozen pretty sizeable websites in sizeable markets that have had next to no competition for years, and they're not exactly technical marvels nor in some cases user friendly. Why have we not seen competition as the price of tech dropped and dropped and dropped over the last two decades? The things you can do on a cheap, cheap droplet are pretty wild.

The very notion that in an industry where you can literally build things anywhere that the expected approach is that you move to the most expensive locale in the US says that we've really taken a very narrow and kind of unimaginative approach. We're supposed to be an industry all about innovation. Where is it?

[sansnomme]

DDG piggybacks off Bing.

[hef19898]

All true for companies aiming, or forced to aim, for unicorn status. A bootstrapped Uber can be a viable, profitable local business, so.

There are so many business models out there that don't require blitzscaling to succeed. I would be worried if my access to VC money to outgrow any competition would be my only competitive advantage I have.

[PeterisP]

A bootstrapped Uber-like company can't survive the entry of a funded Uber-like company in that local market, as their expected initial promotional campaign and discounts will have you running at a loss for months which you can't afford unless you have substantial cash reserves.

This particular example (prolonged "dumping" of services far below cost in the business of taxi-like-services) is what we've seen in practice a bunch of times in many cities as there have been multiple 'waves' of richly funded new entrants trying to come in.

[hef19898]

Taxi services are doing just fine, even if the are pressured by Uber. So there is that.

[Retric]

Taxi are allowed to pick people up who hail them on the street or at a subway stop etc. That’s a huge protected revenue source.

[darepublic]

Also some ideas depend on network effects more than others. Make something that is useful even if nobody else is using it and you protect yourself from this