Hacker News Reader

Comment by vonmoltke | Hacker News Reader

> Because VC funded startups are forced to grow fast or die a lot of good, profitable, user focused ideas are trashed because they won't lead to rapid enough expansion.

I have noticed that, to some people, "VC startup" is almost considered redundant. That is, if your company is not seeking outside investors, not seeking rapid growth, not seeking an "exit", then it isn't a real "startup". So, in addition to what you mention about user focus (or lack thereof), I feel that this hurts ambitious entrepreneurs by making them think the VC/outside investment/grow-or-die treadmill is the only way to get big and escape the "lifestyle business" stigma. Many of them likely could succeed, albeit more slowly, without the treadmill.

View on HN

Completely agree and I experienced much of that on my own journey. Customers would ask whether I'm interested in taking VC or if I wanted to keep it as a "lifestyle business" - not realizing that we were doing more than fine without requiring outside funding. After a while though it nags at you and makes you wonder whether you should take VC because doing so makes building a business formulaic. Bootstrapping a company can feel like you're in uncharted waters in comparison because a lot of articles assume you've taken or want to take VC. And they assume that you want to exit. I wish there were more publicly shared success stories of bootstrapped companies that didn't take funding because there are more of them out there than people realize. And taking things slower can help you validate use cases, flesh out the product and build the type of company that you want. I'm very happy that we never took VC.

> if your company is … not seeking rapid growth, … then it isn't a real "startup"

Isn't that the definition of a "startup"? If you're not seeking/expecting rapid growth, isn't it just a "small business". There's nothing wrong with that, not everything has to be a "startup".

(Wiktionary tells me "A new company or organization or business venture designed for rapid growth", but Merriam-Webster Collegiate 11th ed tells me "a fledgling business enterprise". Of course, the Merriam-Webster only recognizes "start-up" not "startup", so how much could they know?)

I would distinguish between growth-at-all-costs and a scalable business. Both are startups, but VCs only invest in the former. Jetbrains is a good example of the latter.

Just because it's the official definition of a start-up doesn't mean it's a good definition.

There's been a steady stream of bootstrapped companies providing legally and morally uncontroversial, high quality products to satisfied customers, and growing steadily until they become much bigger than "small businesses".

IMO there's something deranged about the need to operate on the basis of explosive growth from day zero. Not only does it create pointless stress and drama, but it isn't even a particularly reliable way to grow a business - never mind an uncontroversial one with satisfied customers.

Is this lifestyle business stigma a real thing? Or just something the VC lobby put out there? Personally I think anyone leading a business should deserve respect, as running one is hard.

Yes it's the business-y equivalent of calling one small-minded.

It is, at least in the Valley amongst the get-rich-fast crowd, which is not a small portion of the people working here.

There are a lot of things I don't like about the tech culture in the bay area, and this everything-but-unicorns-is-trash attitude is close to the top of the list.

It's certainly part of the culture but when you make 6-figures a month as a bootstrapped founder, those arrogant a-holes quickly quiet themselves. Most of the fellow bootstrapped founders I've met are pretty decent people and there are a lot of them. I found the old money east coast elite to be much more annoying and far less interesting.

I think there are cases that are clearly "a new small business" vs "a startup". In between there is some fuzziness.

Obviously you don't need to have or be pursuing VC money to be called a startup, but there is probably truth in the idea that startups are inherently unstable. You may not be growing exponentially, but you are spending down money in pursuit or definition of a stable business model that doesn't currently quite work yet, or a different way to exit that unstable phase.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com