[danbmil99]

Nicely done.

One problem that arises with the bootstrap-off-revenue model (assuming of course you are lucky enough to find product/market fit quickly, before you run through your seed money) is that you become vulnerable to company B that was willing to take crappy VC $$$ and is now able to kick your ass on price, right down to the freemium, eyeballs-are-value goose-egg giveaway.

Free markets are always prone to a race to the bottom. Just because you insist on reading the fine print and haggling over the downside scenarios, doesn't mean the 23 yr old recent grad no expenses (family fallback) guy won't take that deal. He damn well will.

serious 1st world problems, eh?

[tlogan]

But there will be company C raising even more money and beating company B. And then comes Google and beats company C.

In short, if you are building a company you need to built it based on some "secret sauce". That could be your team. That could be your patent. That could be just customer base. That could be your unique understand of the market. But money is never "secret sauce".

And please do not take me wrong here: raising investment is very important to make your company big. But first thing first.

[mcguire]

"...you become vulnerable to company B that was willing to take crappy VC $$$ and is now able to kick your ass on price, right down to the freemium, eyeballs-are-value goose-egg giveaway."

If that's physically possible, if price is the differentiator, you probably don't need to be in the business anyway. (Now, I'm not saying that you're wrong, in most cases, but....)