Originally published on LinkedIn (reformatted for zahradnik.io / Medium)
Should you bootstrap your company or raise venture capital?
I can’t answer for you — but I can share what my own journey taught me.
I haven’t yet built my “successful startup,” but I’ve already lived through several failed ones. Those failures became one of the best education cycles of my life.
All of them were bootstrapped.
And here’s why:
- I didn’t leave the corporate world just to report to a new board in a different building.
- Securing aligned investors takes months of pitching and paperwork. I prefer building over forecasting.
- Even aligned co-founders often slowed the momentum.
- I’m not building for a 5-year exit — I’m building something meant to outlive me.
- Vision dilutes proportionally to the number of people who have a say in it.
When you take investor money, you’re not free.
You just accepted a fancier job — one where the boss wears a Patagonia vest and tracks KPIs in spreadsheets.
And that’s fine for some founders.
It’s just not me.
I’d rather go slower, but on my terms.
Over the years, one leadership rule proved itself again and again:
Listen broadly. Decide sovereignly.
You are the captain.
If you act like the captain, you may burn yourself occasionally — but long-term, sovereignty is the only strategy that compounds.
This pattern isn’t new. Consider:
- Guido van Rossum, creator of Python — the original “benevolent dictator for life.”
- Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux and Git — two tools that quietly reshaped the world.
Both built slowly.
Both built without chasing money.
Both built with sovereignty.
So the real question is not “bootstrap or VC?”
It’s this:
Do you want to build something fast and shallow?
Or something slow that actually shifts society?
