[onion2k]

Virtually no founders out there are pouring their personal savings into their company.

That definitely isn't true. Tens of thousands of companies are bootstrapped every year. Some go on to be quite successful (Github, GoPro, Apple...).

You won't find all that many bootstrapped business founders posting on HN (it's run by an investment company...) but that doesn't mean they're not out there. Plus, due to the changing landscape of VC investing, most deals require a bit of traction before you even get a Series A. You have to bootstrap before many VCs will talk to you. There's also angel money, family and friends, etc, but getting that while you're pre-revenue is still much harder than proving the business is at least a bit viable first.

[dlisboa]

Aren’t all those examples “day X profitable” startups? As in startups that had a profitable business model from day 1 and it only took them some share of the market to become profitable after an initial loss (usually operational). GitHub was making money in their very first year.

Many startups these days follow the “never profitable” business model in the hopes of being bailed out by angel investors or IPO.

I’d say it’s definitely possible to bootstrap when your profit grows along with your business. Not possible when you burn money every single day forever.

[bluedino]

Was GitHub ever profitable?

[sbilstein]

Take those assumptions and spend a year burning your savings. Once you see that all your competitors raised at least a few hundred k pre-product while you’ve got a hole burning in your pocket, you’ll feel like an idiot.

If you run an already profitable business like a services company, you can get away with bootstrapping. But then it’s not really bootstrapping, it’s a pivot.