I think there’s a benefit to being one of six people that no one knew. No VCs would return our calls and we were broke and bootstrapping it and operating under the radar so we could focus on the most important things: the product, the users, what we were building. There’s all this noise, the tech-crunch, which you have to tune out if you want to build a good product. None of that stuff is additive; it all takes away from building a product.
—
Caterina Fake on developing in obscurity.
Caterina Fake on developing in obscurity.
Scott
on 21 May 10Amen and amen.
John Freeborn
on 21 May 10When I was in college, I started a skateboard company. We attended the big trade show using my pizza delivery money and my friends odd job money. We had no clue about funding, backing, etc. The response we got from people was amazing and we learned a ton. I think a big part of that was that we were doing things the “wrong” way, by industry standards. We just made products that we loved and the rest worked it self out.
Scott Miller
on 21 May 10This post really resonated. We are bootstrapping (not broke…), and enjoying the “quietness”. Days are spent interacting with customers, learning and more learning. Even when customers all seem to speak at once, it doesn’t seem noisy or distracting. More like a good party, where more interesting people just walked into the room.
I don’t think VCs or the tech media wreck the party. They just have other interests, other conversations, that “they are in” and we are not.
This discussion is closed.