It's a common misconception to think that Basecamp never took any investment but in fact they did from Jeff Bezos.
https://signalvnoise.com/archives2/bezos_expeditions_invests...
That said, it helps prove the OP point that's it's possible to raise funds and remain independent.
Every time I see someone using Basecamp as inspiration for bootstrappers I perceive it as very dishonest.
That said, I think it is a very good thing that there are more options for funding high growth tech startups that do not require a ”go unicorn or go bust” mindset of the VCs.
It certainly a great innovation (even if it’s not exactly a new idea) in the startup ecosystem
How far are you willing to take this?
What if he had borrowed money from his grandma? What if they couldn't afford servers AND rent so they stayed with his parents? Or they couldn't get a lease on their own, so a friend co-signed?
The reality is that we all accept some form of help with our businesses at one point or another that takes some of our stress away. You'd be searching long and hard to find people who became successful with no form of investment at all. And even if you did, what would that prove?
I believe every bootstrapper has some kind of self-funding. So whenever I see a story of a successful bootstrapper, I assume self-funding, and I don't consider it dishonest in my perception of the story. If the bootstrapper happens to be a millionaire already, and the "self-funding" is in the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars, I don't consider the inspiration applicable to my own case, but I would probably not call it "dishonest".
All of your small-money examples look to me as in this category as both honest and applicable to my case.
One of the lines that I draw is that calling "bootstrapper" a company that received, let's say $100,000, from a billionaire in order to help with growth is dishonest in my perception.
From the tone of your comment, you seem to have the impression that I am a purist of some sort about the technical definition of "bootstrapper" and that I am policing how other people use it as some sort of crusade. You are wrong. I was sharing the filter that I use when interpreting this kind of story. I create these filters because I am a wanna-be founder myself, and I have decisions to make, decisions that are influenced by what I read about what happened to other people. I have to establish a gross probability of success with each decision. Deciding to pursue funding is one of those decisions. So when I read about bootstrappers I try to filter as honest or dishonest (also along other dimensions, as applicability).
So this search of mine of what I consider honest or not would prove nothing to you or to anyone. I don't care. It is not the reason I do it.
Is Atlassian not bootstrapped to you either? Or 1Password? They both took money super late into their game or for taking money off the table. i can see saying Atlassian or GitHub aren’t bootstrapped, but things are different these days. In prior years they may have just IPOed.
> Then in 2006, it suddenly happened from one day to the next. Jeff Bezos had taken an interest in Basecamp, and Jason and I each sold him a minority, no-control stake of our share of the company for a few million dollars each (Basecamp had been self-funded and profitable from the start, so didn’t need any capital for the venture).