"VC money broke tech."

Caspar von Wrede recently hit the $10k MRR milestone on his bootstrapped product, Keep The Score.

I caught up with him to get a peek at his finances. He shared his views on money and how venture capital is the bane of the tech world. 👇

Tech is broken

💰 "VC money broke tech." —Caspar

According to Caspar, the crazy amount of money "sloshing around" the tech world over the last 10-15 years has led to astronomical company valuations and VCs spraying a "firehouse of cash" at companies — some good, many bad. Often, before they even find product-market fit.

And this, more than anything else, has broken tech.

There is a "growth at all costs" mentality in VC-backed startups that creates performative money spending, like bloated tech teams, marketing budgets, and tech stacks.

He says it's due to low interest rates, cheap money, and the staggering amount of cash Big Tech has been making.

💰 "As a result, underemployed engineers have dreamed up a whole bunch of new technologies, including serverless, complex build systems, nosql databases, and a new javascript framework every five minutes. Junior engineers have learned that this is 'the way things are done' and have carried this thinking into new ventures. The old ways of doing things, which were often more than suited for the job, have been forgotten." —Caspar

So no, he won't be accepting VC funding any time soon!

💰 "This decision is driven by the type of life I want to live. I want a life where my only boss is my customers. I want the freedom to make my own decisions and choose how I spend my time. I do not want employees. None of this would be possible with venture funding." —Caspar

He admits that he might revisit the point about employees at some point, though, if he needs to scale.

💰 "Some businesses (1%) should take VC funding. The rest should either take other funding (9%) or bootstrap (90%)." —Caspar

And it's worth noting that Caspar isn't opposed to funding in general; just VC funding. He'd be happy to take money from an indie fund like Tiny Seed or Calm Fund.

💰 "These guys have a different business model. They know that instead of 9 out of 10 ventures failing, maybe only 3 or 4 will fail. This changes their whole outlook and how they deal with their investments. These guys want your business to be slow and sustainable. With VC funding, you are either the 1 in 10 and have to endure incredible pressure to return 100x on the investment or you are written off." —Caspar

Hard numbers

Suffice it to say, his product is bootstrapped. Let's take a look at what he's bringing in:

• Revenue: $11k/mo
• Business bank account: €14k
• Personal bank account: Undisclosed
• Founder pay: €3.5k/mo after tax

Before Keep The Score became profitable, Caspar funded it in two ways. First, he got a combination of a jobseeker's allowance and a founder's grant from the German government, totaling about $20k. Second, he went through about $25k of his savings.

Luckily, he doesn't have to rely on either anymore.

Here are his biggest business expenses:

• Contractors (developers): €500-€3,000/mo
• Hosting (Digital Ocean) — 2 servers plus a database): $350/mo
• SEO (Ahrefs): €179/mo
• Screenshotting (API Flash): $180/mo

Beyond that, he pays a bit for analytics tools, emails, and various other services.

As far as his personal expenses, he didn't want to share numbers, but he says it's basically just rent and food.

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Quit at the right time

Caspar quit his job when Keep The Score was making $500/mo. He says it was risky in hindsight, but as we already covered, he has a high tolerance for risk. He doesn't recommend that approach to everyone.

Playing it safe, according to Caspar, would have looked more like quitting once revenue reached 120% of his salary.

💰 "Only quit your job when you have significant revenue. But don’t wait too long either." —Caspar

The flow of money

He has two accounts. He always keeps €14k in his business account as a buffer. Anything over $14k is reinvested in the business, with the lion's share going to contractors. He also uses this buffer to pay his taxes.

Once a month, he moves his €3.5k salary from his business account to his personal account. It isn't much, but it's similar to what he made at his previous job. He came to the number by summing all his expenses, so it's comfortable but not cushy.

💰 "It's enough to feel comfortable, but I still get anxiety that it's not enough. Once I have around $7 or $8k expendable income, I will feel safe." —Caspar

He has a wife and two kids, which might add to the stress. But his wife puts in about the same amount of money and that helps.

Pianos and products

Caspar doesn't invest right now, but he wants to. He says once his business is bringing in more money, he'll put money into ETFs.

In the meantime, he invests in piano lessons. Why?

💰 "Piano lessons force me to engage with something other than a computer." —Caspar

And then, of course, there's his primary investment: His business. As we saw, he already invested $25k into it, plus a few years' worth of blood, sweat and tears.

It's not a very diversified "portfolio", but he's never been one for keeping eggs in different baskets.

💰 "I am investing all my time into one product. I do not have any other side-projects. It could all go away, and I would be in trouble. But I am fine with taking that risk." —Caspar

Don't sweat the small stuff

He doesn't budget because he doesn't have to. He says he doesn't buy fancy cars, huge TVs, or the latest iPhones. He has no interest in consuming... though his Nintendo Switch might be the exception here — it's his guilty pleasure.

💰 "I don’t care about these things. Were people unhappy with their 15-inch TVs 20 years ago? Of course not." —Caspar

Caspar recognizes that he could probably reduce spending on things like flights if he really tried. But he refuses to spend time researching flights just to squeeze another 10% out of the cost. He says it's a personality thing. Some people love doing that type of thing. He hates it.

💰 "Don’t sweat the small stuff. Buy the coffee for €5 if you feel like it. And don’t spend huge amounts of time optimizing your finances unless you are seriously constrained." —Caspar

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You can check out Caspar's product, Keep The Score. Or find him on his personal website, X, or LinkedIn

Please note that the above are opinions. This is meant for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be financial advice.

And if you'd like to be featured as a guest in a future interview for this series, let me know in the comments!