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As for the low budget bootstrappers that try to come up with products to make them just enough profit to quit their day job with the minimum amount of time spent, there are some guidelines that can increase the chances of making just enough profit.

I think there is a mistaken understanding of "bootstrapping" here, and one that you see all too often for some reason. "Bootstrapping" is a process, not a goal, or an outcome. You can bootstrap and wind up with a small / "lifestyle" business, OR a huge multinational corporation. Likewise, you can go the VC route and wind up with a multinational corporation, or an insignificant company that gets acquired for peanuts.

Whether or not you bootstrap is completely orthogonal to what your desired outcome is. A "bootstrapped" company not defined as a company that "makes just enough profit for you to quit your day job."

And on the same note, bootstrapping and taking VC money aren't mutually exclusive over time. You can bootstrap for a long time, then take outside money. IOW, you're "bootstrapped" until you aren't.

FWIW, we're taking the bootstrapped approach but we still plan to conquer the world.

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