I remember when I first started reading HN, when having a business model on the table from day one, bootstrapping, and literally running your company out of a garage was all the rage. Easy money really ruined all that. I hope we end up back there some day.
Yeah. While I'm happy to read about these kinds of things, they're far from my own interests (for now). I much prefer the 'bootstrapping' approach for all kinds of reasons, so obviously I also prefer reading about other people's experiences and observations taking the same, more conventional approach.
That said, I understand that the demographics of a site can change, and that's not always a bad thing. And there's still enough variety to keep me here.
Would you (or anyone else reading this) know of online communities similar to HN that are more bootstrappy in their focus?
That option is still there, but does not make headlines. Lots of companies, namely those not in the Valley, go for the organic growth route. It is very fulfilling, but won't make you the next Bezos or Shuttleworth. The VC route is a high risk high reward game. The organic route lowers risk and reward.
What I mean is that absence from the media is not non-existence.
Yes on the risk, fully disagree on the reward part. And i am not talking about the reward of being able to focus on the business rather than raising money.
I am talking about cold hard cash. In a successful small business, many owners will make mid 6 figures, year in, year out, and still many will make 7 figures. After a few year, it beats a lot of exits. And there are many many more of those than the few IPO / big acquisition we can read about. Even with IPOs, the remaining share of the founder sometimes makes me sorry for them.
A six or even seven figure salary won't make you a billionaire. The success cases of the highly leveraged approach are billionaires. The highest return with high leverage is higher.
I do agree with you on the rest of the comment. The mean return for a highly leveraged approach is probably lower than the mean return for organic growth startups.
You need to read up on your history I think. Most plutocrats bootstrapped their businesses. Most giants of the tech world sought VC funds after they were runaway growth and/or profitable.
The VC story only matches a few cherry-picked examples.
