Hacker News Reader

Do you know who else didn't use to have a popular blog? 37signals.

When Basecamp launched, we had something like 4,000 readers of SvN. Now that's a fair chunk, but certainly not unobtainable.

View on HN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias

How many people/companies start blogs and don't succeed like you guys did?

Plenty, but it's a lot easier for a company to bootstrap and hit $1MM in revenues and be profitable than it is to be the next Apple or Google or younameit.

looking forward to hit the $1M mark and be featured by you guys :)

Hitting $1MM in revenues strikes me as "about as difficult" as raising a series A if not harder. However, having to bootstrap places constraints on the type of product/company one can build. There is also the time factor. Some products have a right time and place and bootstrapping may lead to missing a window of opportunity.

Trying to be the next google or younameit is playing the lottery, no argument there. Bootstrapping to $10-100MM strikes me about as unlikely as being the next google.

"Bootstrapping to $10-100MM strikes me about as unlikely as being the next google."

That's not even a contest. $10MM+ bootstrapped companies are far more common than "being the next Google." More stories on the way.

I notice you took the low end of the scale. I wonder if there are many 100MM+ companies that bootstrapped.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com