THE LIES WE’VE BEEN TOLD
I've built companies every way possible. I've raised venture capital. I've bootstrapped. I've succeeded spectacularly (selling my last company for $25M) and failed miserably (ask me about my first startup sometime). After speaking with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the past three years I've noticed something powerful happening:
We're currently in a golden era of entrepreneurship and the gatekeepers are losing their power.
Yes, there will always be founders with fancy degrees, powerful networks, and access to millions in venture capital. But here's what's changed: They no longer have a monopoly on success.
Because the barriers to entry are crumbling:
Technology costs have plummeted
Knowledge is being shared openly
Tools are more accessible than ever
Global talent is at your fingertips
Communities are replacing gatekeepers
And now AI is supercharging what small teams can accomplish. According to a recent New York Times article, tasks that once required entire departments can be handled by one person with the right AI tools. This changes everything about capital requirements. When you can operate lean and reach profitability faster, you don't need millions in funding to prove your concept. You can bootstrap longer, retain more ownership, and choose if and when you want to raise money - rather than having it forced by burn rate.
The playing field isn't close to level yet - but it's leveling. And as someone who's been on both sides (raising VC and bootstrapping), I know that some of the biggest "truths" about building successful companies sometimes aren’t true at all. At best, they are half-truths designed to exclude those who don’t fit the founder stereotype.
Let's bust these myths wide open, with real data to back it up:
Lie #1: "You Need VC Funding to Build a Valuable Company"
The Reality: Less than 1% of companies ever raise venture capital. While one might assume that VC-backed companies have a better chance of survival, the opposite is often true. In fact, bootstrapped companies often have higher survival rates compared to VC-backed companies because:
Bootstrapped companies typically grow more sustainably, focusing on profitability earlier
They tend to be more capital efficient and develop stronger unit economics because they have to
Without external pressure for hypergrowth, they can pivot more gradually if needed
Founder incentives remain strongly aligned with long-term company survival
Bootstrapped companies are regularly acquired by much larger enterprises for 8 and even 9 figures. For example, I sold my bootstrapped company to Euromoney, a publicly-traded British company, for $25 million in cash. As more founders go public with their exit numbers, the perception of bootstrapping is no longer viewed as a backup plan, but rather a smart, strategic choice.
Lie #2: "YOU NEED TO BUILD AN MVP (MInimum viable product) Before APPROACHING Customers"
The Reality: This backwards approach causes entrepreneurs to waste resources building things that no one asked for. Multiple CB Insights studies have identified "no market need" as the top reason for startup failure. Contrast this with companies that practice customer development first: they are more likely to succeed.
And here’s the thing: the imperative to embed yourself with your potential customers can help you hold on to a paycheck for a lot longer as you bootstrap and build your startup. I worked as a consultant to big tech marketers for six years as I tested, built and brought my SaaS product to market. I never once worried that I was building the wrong thing or that customers would be unwilling to pay for it. Because they already were!
You can even mock up and refine your solutions in slides and frameworks to deliver value to customers and get their feedback. This allows you to “build” and test your product with paying customers before really building it. Understand their problems, then build solutions - not the other way around.
Lie #3: "Bootstrapped FOUNDERS Don't MAKE AS MUCH MONEY FROM THEIR EXITS AS VC-BACKED FOUNDERS"
This is probably the biggest lie out there about entrepreneurship. The reason it persists is twofold:
The media is obsessed with covering the biggest, sexiest VC-backed deals
Most founders are unwilling to share their deal numbers so they don’t get reported
After I sold my company for $25 million I decided I wanted to shake things up. So I recorded a video in which I shared my numbers—ALL my numbers. Deal fees, taxes, employee pool, everything. The video went viral and VC-backed founders came out of the woodwork to tell me that they walked away with less money than I did on deals ten times the size. One founder said he walked away with just $2.5 million on a $175 million deal. A venture capitalist explained to me that VC-backed founders typically see their equity dwindle to the single digits for the entire founding team. “So they could sell for $100 million and walk away with a lot less than you did,” she explained.
Another serial entrepreneur explained to me that bootstrappers are also more likely to achieve an exit than VC-backed founders because they don’t have the pressure to grow huge. They can grow more slowly and sustainably, which typically results in better business fundamentals and performance, making their companies more viable acquisition targets.
I had no clue about any of this when I was running my company. I was just keeping my head down, focused on making it another year, then another. I learned all of this only after my deal was done and I had a lot of extra time to talk to hundreds of entrepreneurs. This is why I feel such an urgent need to share all that I have learned with you!
Lie #4: "You must have a technical co-founder"
The Reality: If you are raising venture capital then yes, VCs usually will reject deals where the founding team does not have a technical co-founder, especially if you are building something highly technical and cutting-edge. But a lack of a technical co-founder is certainly not an insurmountable obstacle these days, especially for bootstrapping founders. For example, my co-founder and I were both non-technical. While it was challenging at times, we filled in our lack of technical expertise by hiring excellent vendors and building solid, long-term relationships with them. In these situations, it is critical that founders put in the extra time and effort to build long-term relationships and make sure vendor partners understand their business inside and out. This reduces the inherent risks that come with outsourcing your tech. If I did it, it can be done—and I didn’t have access to the game-changing AI and low-code/no-code tools that exist today.
Lie #5: "Young Founders ARE MORE SUCCESSFUL"
The Reality: The average age of successful startup founders is 45. A MIT study found that a 50-year-old startup founder is 2.2x more likely to build a successful company than a 30-year-old founder. The study analyzed 2.7 million founders and found that work experience, industry knowledge, and professional networks are better predictors of success than age.
This is consistent with my own experience. I started my first company at age 35 and it failed in less than two years. I started my most recent company at age 43, ran it for 14 years and sold it for $25 million at age 57. My determination to not raise VC for my second company was critical to my success but my work experience, industry knowledge and my network were also important factors, just like the MIT study describes.
The Truth About Building Valuable Companies
So what actually matters?
Solving real problems
Understanding and responding to your customers
Managing cash flow
Building sustainable growth
Maintaining profitability
I built and sold a $25M company by ignoring the conventional wisdom and focusing on these fundamentals. We didn't raise VC, I talked to customers for several years before building anything, we never hired in-house engineers, and I started the company at the ripe old age of 43.
If we all listened to the conventional wisdom about what entrepreneurs look like and how they operate, we might quit before we even start. The startup world is cluttered with myths that discourage perfectly capable founders from taking the leap. Don't let outdated stereotypes about age, funding, or tech credentials hold you back. My journey proves that practical business sense and customer obsession can get you far.