[katzgrau]

As someone who bootstrapped, every now and then I'm happy I wasn't smart/convincing/well-networked/on-to-something-hot enough to raise a round (lord knows I tried).

Because I had no money, I had to make money and then hire slowly. 10 years in and 10 employees later, I know this venture would have been over long ago if I landed that lead investor.

[civilized]

So apparently you weren't forced into hypergrowth by VCs in the way this article says you would be? Why not?

[dafelst]

"Bootstrapped" typically implies self-funding, so most likely no VCs were in the picture.

[civilized]

Right, but the article claims that you'll be pressured into VC-fueled hypergrowth because, if you don't take the VC cash, they will throw boatloads of money at a wannabe competitor who will then start... if not successfully competing against you, at least annoying you.

[trowawee]

I think that was the least-accurate part of a mostly decent answer. VCs, like most people, are trend chasers who live in a fairly constrained bubble, no matter how much they want to portray themselves as enlightened Renaissance thinkers who span across human experience and thus can offer useful insight anywhere. Sure, if you're in a trendy space (and in the Valley or one of a handful of other locations) and you refuse investment, they might throw that money at a competitor. But there's a tremendous amount of money sloshing around the world in so many more un-trendy industries and un-trendy places than anyone really realizes, and it's honestly not that hard to tap into those money flows and make an extremely comfortable life for yourself. It's just that most of the people doing that don't talk about it constantly, and they're living comfortably well, rather than making a billion dollars and buying islands.

[Fuzzwah]

I guess that OP's comment about not being onto-something-hot means that VC's didn't see the market as being something worth throwing money at to smash the bootstrappers.