Bootstrapping vs. venture capital: Key differences explained

Bootstrapping vs. venture capital: Growing a business without investors series | Part 1

This blog is written by Clay Upton, entrepreneur, patent holder, and founder of Bloom Growth. Read his full bio below.

INDEX

• Building a business without investors
• Understanding the culture of venture capital
• Why I chose to bootstrap
• What to expect in part two

Building a business without investors

So, you’re thinking about starting your business without taking on venture capital? You’re in good company. I’m Clay Upton, founder of Bloom Growth™ (formerly known as Traction® Tools). I built this company from scratch, in the air, and without outside funding.

In this five-part series, I’ll share my real-world insights on what it means to bootstrap a company, starting with zero capital and zero employees, and how to turn that into real revenue. Let’s get into it.

Clay’s backstory

Before we start, a little about me: I am a software engineer—and an introvert. My advice comes from a place of leveraging my strengths and working around my weaknesses, but even if you are outgoing and sales-oriented, you can dramatically amplify your existing strengths with the leverage I’m going to share with you. We’ll start from a place of no money and no employees and work through first revenue.

Understanding the culture of venture capital

When you take the venture capital route, you’re required to “grow at all costs,” which is why venture-backed companies can afford inefficiencies. They’re given the runway to operate in the red and force their way into markets through brute strength. For some, that works. But it wasn’t right for me.

Why I chose to bootstrap

From day one, I made a deliberate decision to avoid venture capital. Why? Because I didn’t want to be part of the culture that VC funding often demands.

Bootstrapping requires you to break even as fast as possible, which means you have to spend as little as you can. You have to be clever if you want a fighting chance. This journey is all about finding leverage and small inputs that produce outsized outputs.

Entrepreneurship is hard work, especially without money, and you have to ride tailwinds everywhere you can. Let me rephrase: You don’t have to, but you absolutely should!

What to expect in part two

In the following article, we’ll talk about how you can tap into existing audiences to test and sell your product with no cold outreach needed.

Next up: How to find your first sales channel