That advice to bootstrap instead of chasing VC money actually saved my ass

A buddy of mine who runs a small SaaS in Vancouver told me last year to ignore every angel investor who reached out and just grow slow. I thought he was crazy because we were burning through our own cash and I wanted that big check to hire faster. Well 8 months later I saw three other startups in our space take VC money and immediately blow it on flashy offices and overpaid sales teams. Two of them already folded and the third is scrambling for a bridge round. Meanwhile we hit 200 paying customers last month with zero outside funding and we actually know our product inside out. We're not rich yet but we're not desperate either which feels way better honestly. Has anyone else had a similar experience with ignoring the hustle culture and just grinding it out?

2 comments

2 Comments

nancy_owens1d ago

You nailed it with the slow growth approach, @butler.shane. Watching those VC-funded shops crash and burn is wild, but it proves that real customer connections beat flashy offices every time. We hit 150 paying users last quarter by just listening to what they actually needed, not what some pitch deck said. That zero churn you mentioned is the dream, and it only comes from grinding it out without the hype.

butler.shane4d ago

My buddy runs a similar sized shop in Austin and he watched the exact same thing happen to three competitors last year. One of them raised 2 million and spent half of it on a WeWork lease and a CMO who had never worked at a company under 500 people. The crazy part is that slow growth actually forces you to build something people really need versus something that just looks good on a pitch deck. We did the same thing and now our churn rate is basically zero because every feature we added came from a direct conversation with a customer who paid us. The hustle culture makes you feel like you are losing if you are not raising but honestly being able to sleep at night knowing you own 100 percent of your company is its own kind of wealth. The market is going to keep rewarding people who actually understand their customers versus people who just know how to pitch VCs.