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Comment by herewego | Hacker News Reader

Agreed and well put. This is one reason why bootstrapping is such an attractive alternative for many who are able.

I've always been inspired by the story of id software, who funded their company by simply making a product and selling it. It seems like so many people in tech want to come up with an idea and immediately execute it at scale with tens of millions of dollars in seed money. It seems like profit is secondary to investment rounds at startups. Id software was able to remain independent and in control of the partners by making world class products and selling them directly to the consumer

They call this a “lifestyle” business apparently - and part of the issue is that those who do that kind of bootstrapping are often comfortable stopping at some small millions. Who needs more?

An example from another industry is successful restaurants - if you don’t franchise you’re basically capped, and some are quite content with that. A local bar “franchised” - each of the kids of the original owner has their own variation on the bar/restaurant.

They call this a “lifestyle” business apparently - and part of the issue is that those who do that kind of bootstrapping are often comfortable stopping and some small millions. Who needs more?

"Lifestyle business or scalable business", and "bootstrapping or vc" are largely orthogonal concerns. Not completely as there's basically no path to taking VC funding to build a lifestyle business. But the converse does not hold - you can certainly bootstrap a company that is meant to grow into far more than a "lifestyle company". Is it easy? No, but nothing worth doing ever is...

It just seems like what you're taught about how business works in high school (make a product, sell it, reinvest money to make more products and make more money) is at odds with the tech industry. In tech, ideas can often be worth more than their execution. Virtual teenagers are given millions of dollars for an idea they have some specialization in from a bachelor's or masters degree, and often the companies go belly up because 24 year olds don't have the requisite life experience to run a business

One of the four co-founders (and largest shareholder?) of id was forced out: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/id-software-co-founder-sues-fo...

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