Bootstrapped vs startupped

People commonly fantasize about starting their own location-independent, million dollar businesses. I know several people who now work out of their boats.

While there is a whole industry on entrepreneurship (e.g. books, social media figures, boot camps, communities) - the overall landscape is covered in survivorship bias.

We only see the winners, which there are likely <1% (maybe 1/2 a percent) and extrapolate their advice onto ourselves. Or at least that is what I do.

Pretty uncomfortable. I follow the trajectory of a VC funded company, only to see it shut down after 2 years. Even though millions were trading hands in revenue, the math still didn’t work out.

For me, the bootstrapped route is more appealing. No external dependence and no pressure to demonstrate such rapid growth that it defies logic. Successful bootstrappers would argue that you still need to have impressive iteration to stay alive - but I think the terms in general are much better.