The joys and burden of bootstrapping

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Funding is the lifeblood

Funding is the lifeblood of any business. The source of this funding, at least while starting up, can be anyone from friends and family, to a venture capitalist, an angel investor, or even a customer. 

While the source of seed funding at the start can be one of these, as these startups grow, they gravitate towards one primary source of funding for their growth. 

In Bengaluru, people have

In Bengaluru, people have an advantage because many tech founders have started the companies, so they can continue to code or build a product for the next twelve months, and funding will still be available. 

If you look at it, a lot of funds are sitting on a lot of cash. I am sure they are not investing right now, given the sort of uncertainty we are facing now. But I am sure some form of funding will come back, and that will be a question of whether the business is perceived as valuable or not. 

The risk profile will definitely change, and so will the valuation.

Even in good times

Even in good times we had to pave our own way. There was no other external source of money. 

That often feels like you are losing because other guys who took money are growing faster or even dominating the market. But I was not comfortable with it because I was never going to sell the business. 

If you are spending more than you are taking in, that will never be a good idea because, in a downturn, you would have to have this difficult conversation with your investors. We, on the other hand, were always making money throughout the recession.

There are all sorts

There are all sorts of co-founders, but the fundamental point is that, as a startup, you want to have all three, and the capital could come from bootstrapping but you should figure out advice and governance. 

That is where I often see bootstrap companies fail in terms of really optimizing what they could be. They fall short because nobody is asking them certain questions that are typically asked. “How can you grow faster?”, “Do you have the right executives in place?”, “Is that incumbent entering the market a real threat or not?”

India’s SaaS ecosystem has

India’s SaaS ecosystem has inspiring lessons in each of these categories. 

While the majority of them have VCs fuelling their growth, a rare few such as Zoho and Wingify chose to stay funded on their own, bootstrapping their existence and growth. 

There are also some great examples of companies such as BrowserStack that chose to stay bootstrapped for the first few years and later went for VC funding. 

It’s difficult to offer a straight answer to the question about which funding route you should take if starting up today. Let’s get some insights from founders of VC-funded companies and bootstrapped startups.

We have invested around

We have invested around a crore in the business, which is good bootstrap capital, and that has been running. 

I have talked to almost every investment VC firm and they look at me and say “this guy is not somebody who we can fund” because I don’t think there is patient capital in India. 

I don’t know my CAC (customer acquisition cost), my LTV (lifetime value), we don’t do sales incentives, we don’t have a sales target either in the company. 

So, any investor looks at me like this guy is not interested in doing business. 

Many founders may not

Many founders may not have that kind of cash cushion because they started very early in their career. 

In such instances, it comes down to reducing costs to sustain the business for the next twelve months at least. 

You will have to live on subsistence compensation. You will have to cut down both your personal and business expenses so you can last longer. 

The biggest reason I’ve

The biggest reason I’ve seen bootstrap young startups fail (outside of the normal modes of startup failure, which are largely either a lack of product–market fit or co-founder conflicts) is that they don’t establish a proper board of directors or some form of true advisory capacity where people are meeting with them repeatedly and forcing a conversation around planning, growth, and direction and then it doesn’t have to be tied to governance. 

If you think about it, venture capital is a bundled product—a bundle of advice, governance, and money. In reality, people great at allocating capital and making investments may not actually be very good at giving advice on governance. 

People who are good at giving advice may be bad at choosing companies to work with. 

I think investors in

I think investors in India have models, and they try to bucket you into one of those models immediately. And then, if you don’t fit into any one of the models, then that’s it. I don’t think there are investors in India who take risks, at least we haven’t found any.

Key TakeawaysThe success mantra

Key Takeaways

• The success mantra of bootstrap: Balance revenue and spending
• Bootstrap gives freedom of thought and control, marry it with an advisor who can ask you tough questions.

Businesses mainly exist to

Businesses mainly exist to make money, but for us, the purpose is to be one of India’s most respectable software companies delivering globally admired products. 

We chose the path of bootstrapping because we don’t think many financial institutions will align with our inevitable long journey where the end goal is not 10x more money. For Wingify, revenue and profitability are enablers but not the final destination. 

We are building a company that can survive 100 years, and being true to the vision is the ultimate joy. Though this has kept us all motivated, the world often judges a company’s  success  by the valuation and money they have raised. 

Since bootstrap businesses don’t compete on this axis, the next-order implications can sometimes come across as challenges.

Founders keep learning and

Founders keep learning and keep evolving, so my opinion keeps changing on this. Given a choice, I would make a bootstrap no matter what. 

Your ability to make decisions in the company in whichever direction is like taking risks—you are in control on both good days and bad days. That is unmatched, the ability to do that. 

But it comes with a downside—you are probably playing on your own. You don’t have someone helping you, pushing you in the right direction.

Be extremely frugal and

Be extremely frugal and   take   money   from your parents and family; it is okay. I used to take money from my father. 

I might be one of those rare commodities—you do computer science from IIT Bombay, don’t do a job, and still ask your father for money. You want to keep it like that. That brings in that habit of frugality. 

The moment you take the path of raising money, you will build up the habit of spending money, not saving money.

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