Excited to see so much innovation in the bootstrapping community about funding things. One of N teams I'm aware of working on this just announced:https://earnestcapital.co/funding-for-bootstrappers/ …
-
Show this thread
-
If "funding for bootstrappers" sounds a little like a contradiction in terms, the reason for it is that the community of small software businesses hasn't *really* settled on a word that we love to describe ourselves in the way that the VC-funded trajectory uses "startup."
1 reply 1 retweet 13 likesShow this thread -
Mostly bootstrappers are defined in opposition to funded startups not because they have a super moral commitment to particular sources of funding but because they happen to have growth ambitions / market sizes / etc which do not suggest viable chances of raising VC money.
2 replies 2 retweets 14 likesShow this thread -
And aside from my beloved investors at the venerable firms of Visa and Mastercard ("We take 2 and 20... percent APRs!") there are very, very few funding sources in the US which are viable for firms with less than about a million dollars in revenue.
2 replies 2 retweets 14 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @patio11
How about
@robwalling s new virtual incubator for funding?1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @ClayNichols @robwalling
Yep, that's another announced one I'm aware of, but the general point is "There's literally billions of dollars trying to get into the next Google but rounds-to-zero dollars attempting to get into the next [name any company at MicroConf]."
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes -
Replying to @patio11 @robwalling
I'd love to invest in tiny companies. Any suggestions of other ways to do it? Are there any micro VC's out there? So where I'd partner with 3 or 4 folks to invest in tiny companies to spread the risk. (I guess that's
@ycombinator , right?)1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @ClayNichols @patio11 and
If you reduce the potential upside, then companies will need to demonstrate minimal risk to make the economics work for the investor. Such companies already can get funding from traditional small business loans.
1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes -
Replying to @glennon @ClayNichols and
Have you ever tried to start a SaaS company with a small business loan? No chance. There’s a huge gap between SBA and the kinds of companies we’re talking about here. Even if you could get a loan, it’s a loan...have fun paying that off for the next 20 years if you fail.
1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
I understand the reasoning for it but I was underprepared for the difficulty of getting loans even after my companies were established and making what many would consider healthy amounts of revenue. Like, all but laughed out of room for a $30k credit line when I had $X00k rev.
-
-
Replying to @patio11 @robwalling and
Thought process at bank: “Look we’re going to actually need to send your books to an underwriter; that action costs us $2k or so; that swamps our predicted margin on this. Here, have another credit card instead.”
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes - 1 more reply
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.