I just had lunch with a good friend who recently launched ShackPrices.com. He and his co-founder have bootstrapped their company, and as we were discussing his new business, which offere real estate listing for Washington State (soon to expand to other states), I began thinking about the values of bootstrapping over seeking funding.
I am a firm believer that if a company can be bootstrapped, then it definitely should be. However, I would be very interested in how many bootstrapped firms are successful? Along those lines, how many companies listed on TechCrunch.com are bootstrapped..?
Y Combinator is an interesting hybrid between bootstrapping and angel investing. They provide funding equal to $6,000n, where n is the number of participating founders for three months. They provide experience and mentorship for startups, which some would say is exactly what they need.
As nPost.com grows and begins offering new features, the key question I ask myself as a co-founder is simply; what will it take for us to be successful? Can we do it with the resources that we have available now? At this point, I do believe that yes we can.
About nathan kaiser
