Tips for bootstrapping start-ups: ‘not every business can scale’

I disagree with Kamath. Just about every business can be bootstrapped — barring some healthcare products, etc. He makes the point that if your product can be easily copied, you need funding. But what you actually need is a moat, because that makes your product harder to copy. And anyone can build a moat.

As with most problems, you can throw money at it, or you can throw time at it. Bootstrappers might not be able to throw money at it. But we can throw time at it, build a moat, niche down hard, and stay nimble.

This is why app extensions are a great business model for bootstrappers,

You are building for an ecosystem which provides the marketing for you. At the same time, the product cannot scale because it is limited to the platform.

Think Shopify apps, Airtable extensions, etc.

@SimonHoiberg just posted an interesting article saying pretty much the opposite of this. He successfully bootstrapped a company in a crowded space. Would be interested in hearing his thoughts.

So, essentially what he's saying is, bootstrapping a business in a crowded market doesn't make sense - you either have enough of an edge that it shields you from the competition, or you need to find an investor (and therefore not be bootstrapped) to create enough distance between you and your competition?