Why You Should Read This Book

There’s a narrative in the startup ecosystem that assumes you will raise funding when you start a company.

I’ve attended meetups where I mentioned bootstrapping my company to millions in revenue and was asked, “Why would you do that?” From the near-mythical origin stories of Apple, Facebook, and Google to the wildly popular TV show Shark Tank, funding is the assumption rather than the exception.

In the introduction of my first book, written in 2009, I said the following:

“I am not anti-venture capital. I am anti-everyone-thinking-venture-capital-is-the-only-way-to-start-a-tech-company.”

The dream of being picked from a sea of wannapreneurs, anointed as a “real” founder, and handed buckets of money is alive and well in Silicon Valley and other startup hubs around the world. Except there’s something wrong with seeking this narrative . . . It’s lazy.

It implies that you need someone else’s permission to build your company. That you’re not a real entrepreneur until an investor tells you that you are.

Or maybe you like having an excuse not to ship, and a never-ending quest for funding is a pretty good excuse. There’s a reason the most common piece of advice I give aspiring founders is:

Instead of waiting for a basket of money to fall into your lap, go build your business. If you were an author, I would tell you to stop asking publishers for permission and go write your book. Andy Weir (author of The Martian) didn’t wait for approval; he wrote an international bestseller that’s been made into a film starring Matt Damon.

If you were a filmmaker, I would tell you to stop asking film studios for permission and go make a film. Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez did, and they’ve built careers based on their unique voices and scrappy approaches to filmmaking.

Much like the author who waits to write their book, or the filmmaker who waits for permission from the studio, the startup founder who waits for funding to start their company is more likely to wind up disappointed than funded. At least, that’s the way the numbers play out.

If you search for meetups about startups, most will assume you are seeking funding. If you search the Internet for how to launch a startup, the first step is usually building a slide deck to pitch to investors. Instead, I would tell you to focus on building your business.

The point of this book is to show you that path. If raising funding is the blue pill, I invite you to take the red one. It may not be pleasant, but it’s a reality you control. A reality where you don’t need permission.

After nearly two decades of working with startup founders, I know that bootstrapping takes longer to generate life-changing wealth than the moonshot approach of raising venture capital. But the likelihood of some kind of a “base hit” is much, much higher. You might think of it as a .01% chance of making $100 million versus a 20% or 30% chance of making hundreds of thousands or millions (and maybe a higher percentage if you don’t make the common mistakes).

More than 99% of companies that seek funding do not receive it, and the vast majority of those that land funding ultimately fail. This is not the case with bootstrapping, as I’ve observed firsthand while starting six startups and running the largest community for bootstrapped (and mostly bootstrapped) software founders, MicroConf.

There are superpowers to being bootstrapped. One is that you don’t need anyone’s permission to start or build your company. Another is that your business doesn’t die until you quit. Bootstrappers don’t run out of money; they run out of motivation.

It’s a shame that although more than 99% of new companies started every year take no funding, every article you read about starting a tech startup assumes and glorifies the raising of a huge funding round. As if raising funding is the goal—it’s not.

Building a business that generates enormous profit and serves its customers, founders, and employees should be the goal. As a founder, you’re likely seeking freedom from working for others or wealth to support your lifestyle.

Maybe you want to spend 10 hours a week working on your company and the rest of the time traveling or with your family.

Or maybe you want to earn millions of dollars so you can buy your dream car, your dream house, or Banksy NFT.

Maybe you just want a sane work life in which you have more say about when and how much you work.

There are many reasons to start your own company, and funding is simply a tool you may or may not opt to use. The good news is the easiest way to raise funding is to build a great business first.

I wish the tech press spent more time selling us on this dream and less time telling us how a company that will be out of business in 18 months just closed its Series A (at a ridiculous valuation, no less; otherwise it wouldn’t be on the front page of TechCrunch). Aspiring founders read this and figure that if they play the startup lottery, one day they, too, can be anointed as worthy.

My intent is not to dissuade you from raising funding (I run a fund that invests in startups, for crying out loud). My hope is to expose you to the massive, unseen part of the startup ecosystem that exists beyond the tech press. The part that houses the more than 99% of startups that don’t ask for permission to start.

Instead, they show up, they work hard, they focus, and they ship products every day. They made the decision to build their business instead of their slide deck. This is what I did on my 13-year journey bootstrapping software products and software as a service (SaaS) companies. Tens of thousands of others are doing the same today.

Many will become successful, and some will become wildly profitable. They won’t get there by waiting around or asking permission. They show up every day, and they do the work.