Bootstrapping vs VC

Bootstrapping vs. VC

In 2021-2022, the biggest flex in SaaS was: “We just closed a round.”

If you weren’t raising, it often felt like you were missing out, being too conservative, or just not ambitious enough.

Fast forward to SAAS NORTH Conference this year and the tone definitely seems to have changed.

More often than not I was being congratulated for building a company with my own funds and retaining equity.

Here’s my thoughts on the VC vs. bootstrapped debate:

🚀 If your goal is hyper-growth or becoming the category default, outside capital can be the right tool. You may need that money to hire quickly and capture the window of opportunity.

🪴 But if you’re willing to grow slower and steadier, you can avoid a lot of risk that comes with taking other people’s money.

Because the moment you bring in investors, you now have a boss— sometimes a boardroom full of them—who also have someone they report to.

And we’ve all heard the horror stories where founders invested their own money, only for VCs to come in with terms that prioritize the VC's return first, potentially leaving nothing for the founder post-sale.

That doesn’t make VCs bad though! It just means incentives and expectations (and market timing!) change.

As I always seem to be saying, there’s no one right path. When we started our software business, we deliberately set it up so that raising was an option, not an obligation.

And in 2025, building a profitable, founder-owned SaaS has been the right one for us.

So if you’re a founder wrestling with “Should I raise?”, here are the 3 questions I suggest asking yourself:

🤹‍♂️ “What am I actually optimizing for: control, speed, or market share?”

⚖️ “Am I okay with a slower path if it means keeping more equity and more freedom?”

🤔 “If my investors got paid and I didn’t receive anything at exit, would I still feel good about the journey?”

With 2026 just a few weeks away, it might be an interesting time to decide which way you want to go.