I have a bootstrapped side project, Tunnelmole, turning a small profit and growing at a slow and steady rate on its own. I'm the engineer so I only really pay hosting costs, which are covered by the revenue, although in the early days I had to cover this.
While venture capital is an option, if it continues to grow, it's entirely possible the venture capitalists may not be needed.
But it depends how my own efforts go, there's still a long way to go before my current methods become ineffective.
> 9. VC funding is cool and all, but essentially, it is a waste of time if you haven’t validated your market: bootstrapping to get paying customers quickly is the most effective tactic available.
> 10. In all honesty, you don’t want to take external funding unless you have intensely strong user growth; and being unable to hire becomes your bottleneck.
Or you have a business that needs capital to get going.
The ending of the piece helps to confirm exactly what you said - really, you want to bootstrap unless you are going so gangbusters that a lack of quick cash is damaging your ability to grow.