Are you worried about fundraising?

Why fundraise when you can bootstrap?

Building your business with real customers (instead of begging investors and giving away a big chunk of the company) is difficult, and it takes a long time. It took me 16 years to grow Jotform to 15 million users.

But, it’s also less risky.

Customers vote for you with their hard-earned cash — and money doesn’t lie. It’s so much easier to start when people are already clamoring to use your product or services.

Growing organically is so underrated.

With Jotform, I chose to grow organically, one step a time. I spread the word by emailing blogs and posting on forums.

I didn’t get distracted by fundraising or push especially hard; I just thought people might be interested in this new way to create forms.

By the end of my first year, about 15,000 people had signed up to use the product.

Bootstrappers like me believe that entrepreneurs should have one goal: earn more money than you spend. In other words, you have to be profitable.

Media outlets often celebrate companies that raise millions of dollars and have huge vanity metrics, like user acquisitions. There’s a myth that you can worry about being profitable later.

Clearly, there are exceptions. Capital-intensive startups, such as building an online marketplace or opening a physical restaurant or retail store could require funding. Business is never one-size-fits-all.

My advice? Ignore those investors or news and do it your own way. Make sure you’re profitable from the start — even if those profits are modest at the beginning.

Work steadily and don’t worry about “fundraising” until you have a solid foundation.

In order to stay profitable, I made two key decisions in the first year of my company, Jotform:

• I moved back to my native Turkey. I knew I wanted to grow the company and hire employees, but the U.S. was too expensive.

• I hired my first employee. It felt like a huge leap, but I had enough money set aside to pay a full-time salary for a year. I knew it was time, especially because I wanted to create a premium (paid) version of the product.

We released the paid version of Jotform in April 2007. We only received three Premium upgrades on our first day, but it was still incredibly exciting.

Word continued to spread, and by the end of 2007, we had 50,000 users and 500 paid subscribers.

If I had been distracted by fundraising or tracking sheer vanity metrics, I might have felt pretty smug about what we had achieved. But, I was focused on profits.

I knew we had a long way to go. We needed to add more paid users and steadily grow the subscription base — and that’s exactly what we’ve done for the last 16 years.

I’m more worried about getting to $1 MRR

I think this is a fair question, Carolyn -- personally, I am not concerned. my mind set has been changed ever since I read the Paul Graham article "Default Alive" -- if you have not read this, I HIGHLY recommend every founder read it http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html -- i have applied this thinking to EVERY business I have started and it is a fail safe every time. while this doesn't necessarily mean you NEVER raise, it definitely creates a beneficial approach that favors a sustainable and profitable business, regardless of cash infusions/fundraising. hope that is a helpful thought!

No not really, it seems like there is always a way if you keep trying

Running out of money IS the most widespread reason why startups fail. So funding is a matter that should be taken seriously.

"Where do you find the funds?" is perhaps the most common and worrying question for startups. It is tough and has always been tough... And, frankly, your moves will greatly depend on the funding stage you're at (https://www.upsilonit.com/blog/everything-you-want-to-know-about-startup-funding-stages).

For instance, during the pre-seed stage, even your relatives or close friends can chip in to get your project going. And the further you advance with the funding steps, the more "external" will the budget flow be.

So, as long as you have a strategy and plan (and follow them), it'll get much simpler to keep an equal mind in this respect.

The thing that doesn't set my mind is giving away ownership of your company with each days passed.
You come with idea, work on it and someone hoards a lot of money into it and you're done. Because those first investors will start forcing you to take more money to hype the valuation. And you will end up with very less percentage in your own company.

It's not something I'm affected by at this stage. But raising capital for a startup has never been easy. Sure, rising inflation may have made investors even more selective, but it's not a phase that can last long... From speaking to people who have been through the process, it seems to me that VCs are looking for no-brainers; companies that are growing fast. They still have money to invest. So, if you are growing fast, I don't think your chances are lower than in 2021. If you're not, then your chances are probably low, whether they're just as low as in 2021 isn't that important.

I read a recent Crunchbase interview in which a number of founders said they definitely noticed a change in the fundraising landscape, especially at the due diligence stage. They said potential investors expect them to jump through more hurdles and answer more questions...the threshold has gone up essentially, as investors become more 'picky'.

https://news.crunchbase.com/news/raising-vc-startup-funding-harder-2022-inflation/