Is there a middle ground between bootstrapping and VC funding?
Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on October 10, 2007
Simeon Simeonov thinks so.
A key innovator at Polaris Venture Partners, a venture capital firm with offices in Boston and Seattle, Simeonov believes there is a "third way" between traditional bootstrapping and VC funding.
Here's Nate Westheimer's brief report on Simeonov's presentation of a concept he calls "Beyond Bootstrapping" during an Amazon Web Services promo event at Cooper Union in NYC along with a little slide show.
The concept here has three major aspects:
• One or more entrepreneurs "humble enough to know they don't have all the answers"
• A bunch of VC's with entrepreneurial backgrounds willing to help them
• A big early stage idea and a few weeks or months of work together with "no strings attached"
An important part of the equation, according to Simeonov, is "monogamy", a commitment by both sides to work only with each other until they've decided whether the relationship is a good fit.
I can certainly see the value of this approach as opposed to the so-called "elevator pitch" where a product or service site unseen will live or die by a 60 second spiel that has nothing to do with whether it has a workable business model.
Presumably, though not definitely based on Simeonov's overview, the approach would include a brief operation period so that the profitability of the venture could be accessed, a major concern in bootstrapping.
Of course, not all bootstrappers are adverse to venture funding, especially when they've grown their companies large enough and understand their business model well enough to know what they are sacrificing and what they are gaining.
My concerns:
• Still an issue arises over how much founders get to keep of what they create and how much they control in the early stages of development
• Still the approach seems obsessed with "the big idea" as opposed to a little idea that can be grown big in time
• The assumption that bootstrapping founders don't have all the answers seems to miss the point that no one really knows anything until the cash starts flowing. The only thing worse than bootstrapping entrepreneurs who think they have it all figured out is VC's with money who are sure they do.
Tags: bootstrapping small business venture capital startup tips advice ideas funding bootstrapping+funding
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Response from:
Simeon Simeonov
(10/10/07 12:24pm)
Response from:
InvestmentVentureCapital
(04/22/08 6:01pm)
This information is very insightful. I am sure that the initial phase with no strings attached plays a huge role in the success or failure of some VC-Entrepreneur relationships.
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Re: founder control in the early stages, this is one of the key reasons why it is important for founders to invest the time in building a relationship with a potential investor so that they can get a sense of what it will be like to work with him/her. And, of course, they should always check lots of references.
Re: big idea vs. little idea that can be grown big, the bias towards a big idea has to do with the possibility of creating a big company with a reasonable degree of risk. If someone has a little idea that can grow big, they should wait for demonstrated traction/scaling before they go to large VCs for funding.
Re: answers, perhaps I wasn't clear in my presentation... VCs typically don't have the specific answers about how to fine-tune execution at any particular startup. Good VCs, however, know a lot about the patterns of growing startups, regardless of the specifics of the business plan. That's the area where VCs can be most helpful to founders. It's a matter of complementary perspectives (breadth vs. depth). Founders may have one or several in-depth experiences. VCs have some of that that from their real-world operating days plus the experience collected from working with and tracking the successes and failures dozens of other startups. For example, at Polaris we have about 100 active portfolio companies. The aggregated lessons are very valuable.