Entrepreneurship, technology, building a business.
Bootstrapping in Unicorn Land
Bootstrapping in Unicorn Land
Being an entrepreneur in San Francisco that hasn't raised money, and isn't trying to, has been an interesting and eye opening experience. Sure bootstrapping comes with a wealth of real challenges, but also opportunities. What's weird isn't that people don't see the opportunity, it's that no one seems to even consider it as an option.
davidspinks




Conversely, being an entrepreneur from SF that has recently moved to UT has been a bit weird also. It is mostly bootstrapped startups here.
What are your impressions of the differences between the cultures? I have an east coast VC friend and as both of us are bi-coastal, its been interesting reflecting on the differences between the two scenes (east coast versus bay area), particularly with regard to VC/angel money and the norms that surround it.
I'm not sure if this is very typical, but early on in our start here at Imzy we were hunting down financial solutions. A local friend recommended a new startup we should talk to. From experience, I'm wary of working with financial startups ... they take a TON of resources from many different angles. So, a bootstrapped startup was a bit scary, but I decided that I'd like to go meet them where THEY work so I can get a feel for how they operate.
We packed a few of us into a car and drove to where their office was. It was small, in a strip mall, in a basement under a barber shop. It smelled like that fluid that they put combs in ... I remember that distinctly for some reason.
The office was very small, ratty, and had 4 people working in it.
I don't care if the office is ratty, at all, nor do I care that it is in the basement of a strip mall, but I did care about the team size, and this was the whole team.
We sat and talked for about an hour and I the parts of the conversation that ended up scaring (or at least surprising) me the most were:
I don't know if there's anything particularly wrong with either of these answers, but in this context, where they are a financial services company, it was too much for me to cope with. I don't want to worry that the money flowing through Imzy is at risk.
Long story short: We sacrificed our vision and ended up work with Stripe. We will revisit what we really want to do in upcoming years.
Yeah particularly with payment processing, that would make me nervous. My (very early stage) startup has looked into doing similar payment/tip scheme as you're doing here, and we were going back and forth about trying to do it in-house (with all the time that would take) versus taking a (safe) shortcut with an organization like stripe, and the potential issues with that.
I spend most of my time in Vermont, with periodic trips to SF. There's... kinda a startup scene here? But its anemic and folks often feel a bit adolescent in their style.
There is a really great startup scene here in UT but it is mostly SAAS. So, us being a consumer company stick out a bit and actually have quite an advantage in hiring ... we have great talent here due to the colleges.
Utah has a stigma attached to it, which is unfortunate.