If you ever choose to raise big money from outside investors for your software company, it’s better to do it much later than early in your startup journey.
Later–after you have created a real product, built a team and a culture, established your core customer profile, and created a repeatable sales engine.
When you do all those things first, without big outside funding, you create a discipline, focus, and efficiency culture.
You also build a valuable company that can use the investment wisely and not screw up what made you successful so far.
Procrastinating big funding until your business is bigger and growing drastically increases the odds of founders:
- staying in control of their companies
- choosing the exact best-fit investment type and investor
- getting the best ROI from that big funding
Deb Muller, founder and CEO of HR Acuity bootstrapped and grew a solid software company at her pace, her way, focused on her core customers.
As she described on the Practical Founders Podcast this week:
“When we finally raised our first round of growth equity funding 10 years after starting HR Acuity, it really helped us think about scaling and investing in people.
“I often wonder, should I have taken it earlier? But I’m not sure I was ready for it earlier. And I’m not sure the world was ready for our product the way it is now.”
Deb was glad she bootstrapped HR Acuity for 10 years.
She is also glad she raised big funding from best-fit investment partners in recent years.
Listen to Deb describe her bootstrapped journey and why she eventually raised VC and private equity funding on the Practical Founders Podcast.
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