January 12, 2023 Anu Atluru via Substack : Rise of the Silicon Valley Small Business

The Silicon Valley small business, the SV-SB, is a hybrid of sorts — it intertwines small business values and discipline with big tech know-how and ambition. Founding teams may look like that of a “traditional” Silicon Valley startup. They’re native to Silicon Valley ethos, skills, and playbooks. But, beneath the surface, they’re different. You might see more solopreneurs and studios (and LLCs instead of C-corps). They value autonomy and flexibility. They envision a range of potentially good outcomes — not binary, all-or-nothing scenarios. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, leadership, resilience

December 21, 2020 Tech Crunch : Silicon Valley should reward zebras, not unicorns

Unicorns thrive so long as they remain in the enchanted forest of endless venture rounds; zebras tough it out in the savannas of the free market. A zebra company won’t become the next behemoth like Facebook or Amazon, but neither will it become the next Quibi or WeWork. One-way extraction of value is replaced with a circular flow of value. Exponential growth is neither the best nor the only way for businesses to operate. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, leadership, resilience

March 1, 2020 Alex Lazarow via HBR : Beyond Silicon Valley

Start-ups operating amid conditions of relative scarcity, where capital and talent are hard to come by and economic shocks are more likely to occur, face unique pressures. Yet many have become superstars in their own right. Their formula involves a more balanced approach to growth, a focus on solutions to real problems, and investment in their workforce for the long term. These “frontier innovators” hold important lessons for companies of all sizes and in all locations—including Silicon Valley itself. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, leadership, profitability

October 16, 2018 Brendan Burns via Forbes : A Faster Path To Success: Alternatives To The Traditional Startup/VC Route

I have been an early-stage tech guy my whole career since graduating from Columbia Business School during height of the dotcom boom. At heart, I am little bit of a contrarian and very much a value investor. For that reason, I was looking for a shortcut when starting my last company—I think I found one, and it’s one you can use, too. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, leadership, profitability, resilience

July 17, 2018 Chris Savage & Brendan Schwartz via Wistia : How an Offer to Sell Wistia Inspired Us to Take On $17M in Debt

Most founders dream of building a product that eventually becomes a household name and sells for a billion dollars, but chasing that goal comes with some downsides. We chose a different path. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, capital, leadership, risk

June 1, 2017 Bryce Roberts via Medium : Real Businesses

I assure you there are founders out raising money right now in the hopes of building a business so they can flip it, make millions, and fund their own comfortable “post financial” lifestyle. Of course, they would never frame it that way; so let’s be clear, if your pitch deck has an “exit strategy” slide you are pitching a lifestyle business. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, product-market fit, profitability, resilience

October 15, 2016 Founder Collective via Tech Crunch : Overdosing on VC: Lessons from 71 IPOs

Venture capital is a hell of a drug. Used properly, it’s like adrenaline energizing many of the greatest companies of the past fifty years. Used incorrectly, it creates toxic dependencies. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, resilience, VC

October 29, 2014 Business Insider : Why Selling A Startup For $20 Million Can Be Better Than Selling It For $200 Million

"My advice is you shouldn't do a startup for financial reasons," he wrote via email. "Most startups fail and there are easier ways to make money with less risk...And if a company is successful, which is very hard to achieve, the money comes whether you build a fat company or a lean one.  Mike [Arrington] and Arianna [Huffington] both did great financially.  So did Mark Zuckerberg and Kevin Systrom.  How many yachts can you water ski behind?" (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, leadership, valuation

February 19, 2014 Devin Mathews via Fortune : How to avoid the venture capital trap

Building your company this way gives you the flexibility to make mistakes along the way without the fear of your VCs pulling the plug. Sure, this way doesn’t get much press but it comes with control over how fast you climb, where you place your bets, and who and when you add to your team. As the saying goes, revenue is for vanity and profit is for sanity. (read more…)

CATEGORY: bootstrap, resilience