Funded Vs Bootstrapped SaaS startups, Part 2: self-funded off-road buggy
A boostrapper profile

A bootstrapper cannot start out with ideas of world domination and ambitions to “shoot for the moon.” Bootstrappers need to hit a feature set that resonates with their audience quickly by focusing like a laser on building only the features that directly address customer pain points.

Unless someone pays for the product, a bootstrapped startup is dead. That’s one of the main reasons why most of self-funded businesses start at the bottom of the market, selling subscriptions targeted at SMBs instead of enterprises which require a longer sales cycle and a heavy sales process.

Another founders’ top concern is talent acquisition. This is why most self-funded businesses can’t be bootstrapped in the Valley — it’s impossible to compete with local VC-backed companies to grow their team.

Bootstrapped SaaS startups usually have a strong company culture of trust and transparency (https://baremetrics.com/open) and operate with distributed remote teams. Each team member is relatively autonomous and free to choose the way they want to work.

Funded companies can acquire new customers quickly by burning cash to experiment with paid channels. Bootstrapped startups don’t have this luxury. They prefer to rely on the most capital efficient channels: virality and organic inbound marketing. This is great for sustainable growth engine, but there is a down side: it will require a good amount of time and patience to get initial results.
['Benoit Hediard']
['Entrepreneurship', 'Venture Capital', 'Startup', 'SaaS', 'Founders']