> No, it won’t have a 1 bil payout, but you make your own rules and you’ll get a healthy cash out from the dividends after only 1 year or so.

Actually, it just might. RightNow was a bootstrapped startup back in the dotcom heydays, which managed a 9 digit exit after selling to Oracle. Midjourney is a unicorn without a cent of VC funding. Zapier raised just $2m, and they only got into YC on their second try.

The old maxim of "build something people want" is crap honestly - it's more appropriately worded as "build something people will pay for".