I am noticing a lot of bootstrappers that are emerging with the ethos that VC isn't what it used to be for some markets, and often a poor choice of the right VC can be a detriment to a project's longevity, with some teams choosing to avoid it at all costs.
Old-timers will remember Jerry Kaplan's Start Up, about the failure/betrayal of Go Corporation. https://www.worldcat.org/title/startup-a-silicon-valley-adve...
Or Sandy Lerner and Len Bosack's betrayal having founded Cisco Systems.
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/07/994789248/cisco-systems-urban...
I just took my idea list and erased everything that needed VC money.
All ideas need some money to launch, and sadly some of the best ideas need a ton of money to launch.
Ask yourself - do I have a simpler idea I can build first to make enough money to launch the thing I really want to do?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/11/holmes-parents-s...
“The family’s wealth, power and political connections date to the 1890s, when Christian Rasmus Holmes, a Danish immigrant and physician, married Bettie Fleischmann, heiress to the namesake yeast fortune and a Cincinnati socialite with a fondness for Chinese bronzes.” - from NYT article: https://archive.vn/aMCpe
The interesting thing is that the future fortune depended on a “yeast fortune”, i.e. while you might not be born into wealth and power, perhaps your grandchildren or descendants can be.
Their companies are more successful as a result (when the vision aligns with the market — things can go to shit just as quickly if the vision is off). And we see this story of parental financial resources reflected in nearly every case. The fact that these were technically “loans” is largely an artifact of tax law.
Or let's say you don't have much money and you want to avoid early VC due to loss of control and hefty dilution. In the US market, move to a college town (often quite safe), take a part-time $15 / hr retail job (CVS and Walgreens are both moving to that minimum in 2022; both are better than fast food and easier than Walmart type jobs), get a modest cost apartment ($650-$750), walk/bus/bike to work (no car expenses), keep your bills under $1k-$1.2k per month, build your start-up on Hetzner (new Virginia datacenter). Self-fund, build your thing, don't take early venture capital, maximize your leverage later on. Maybe occasionally do some side contracting work if necessary to fill up the personal treasury (10 hr per month or less).
The counter argument to that is primarily the speed angle, get bigger faster or get crushed by the VC funded crowd, and similar arguments. It likely varies by the case as to whether a given approach makes more sense or less (eg depending on what you're building, time to market may not be so much of the essence, or it may be critical).
I guess that just going there part time as part of a bigger plan will be a lot lower-stress than trying to make a living off it, but that still sounds like a bad idea
You might be better off working as an engineer for a year and then saving 3-4 years' worth of minimum wage money instead
I had a friend who really regretted using his savings to try and bootstrap businesses though, since he was still working at Amazon in his 60s
And it only works well for younger people without a family, as it'll involve 70-80 hours of work per week (at least in the beginning).
It's a poor(er) person's scenario. It's what I might do if I were 19-21 years old again. Back then, circa 1999-2001, I did a lot of web development contracting to fund building things I wanted to build with the rest of my time. It was a quite unreliable path though, as some months were flush and others were bleak. Poor people in that scenario usually don't have degrees from nice universities, they often can't easily get good engineering jobs early on. And if they have an aversion to working for other people/companies, as I always have, then that complicates the context further (CVS & Co are mostly drone jobs; POS, scan bar codes, greet customers, bag items, stock shelves, repeat; and it might help reduce development burnout, as it gets you away from code and out of the house). If you're young'ish, poor'ish and without a ton of experience, it provides a highly workable avenue to go after building a thing you want to build, self-funded, while cutting out the need for early outside capital (the need to give up a piece of your soul to the sharks).
Note that all night is important in the above, not gas station. Anyplace that will let you work not normal business hours so you can work your business during business hours is what you need.
I've also seen some late stage cos raise a mix of equity and debt at favorable terms; is that becoming more common as part of the same phenomenon?