I don't understand why bootstrappers are any more unrealistic than YC applicants or anyone else starting a company. Folks in the "talking to VC's" loop are often woefully unrealistic about how long it will take to raise funds (and 199 out of 200 won't). Tony writes a great headline but if it's taking longer than he anticipated to make a profit with Rescue Time perhaps he might have abridged the post to the need to focus on the profit model earlier. I find bootstrappers who are consulting in parallel with product and customer development--provided they are working with at least one other person--to be more grounded in reality than the individuals or teams who are seeking money from investors before they have a viable application with paying customers.
Strangely, I think a lot of funded startups are more realistic about the challenges involved. It's well documented. We read about flameouts every day.
All of the bootstrapped businesses that get 6 months into their business and realize it's a much longer road just sorta fade away. We don't hear much about 'em, don't read about 'em... But a lot of people have latched onto the (very inspiring) story of 37s and a few other bootstrap stars. Good on 'em.
The volume of people chasing the (more realistic) 37s-style dream is high, but I've been struck by the unreasoned optimism-- not the "we can build something really good" optimism (which is required, I think) but the "we'll be rolling in money within 6 months". Thus the post!
Regarding abridging my post to say "focus on profit earlier" - nope. I don't think I'd go back and go that route, even if I could... But that's probably another post.
There are very very few funded startups, so the question for me is the comparison between those seeking funding and those that are bootstrapping (seeking revenue from paying customers). I find the former to be much less realistic than the latter but we are probably looking at different data sets.
