> so raising money almost certainly means higher salaries for employees
> but otherwise the whole thing seems pretty hollow
uh, what? why? how did you come to this conclusion? you're wrong. not only are you wrong, you are also assuming he's being cheap to his employees. you just made up this fact in your mind, and assume it to be true. quite frankly, that's you projecting.
we're bootstrapped and we pay people higher salaries to incentivize them to work for a smaller, "unstable" company. if we raised money tomorrow nobody's salary would change. my salary as a founder probably wouldn't change. i'm pretty sure that anything beyond a nice dinner to cap the occasion, i.e. just paying ourselves more because some new money showed up, would be frowned upon pretty heavily by anyone investing money.
and i am aware of several name-brand funded companies that pay people less than market just for the privilege of having their company on a resume.
bootstrapping doesn't mean "be a cheapskate and pay everyone under market" it means "earning and using revenues to grow the company at the early stages and possibly beyond". you can bootstrap and pay people above market salaries, or pay yourself a wildly inflated salary if you are the owner.
you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern small businesses work, probably because you have never run one.
> but otherwise the whole thing seems pretty hollow
uh, what? why? how did you come to this conclusion? you're wrong. not only are you wrong, you are also assuming he's being cheap to his employees. you just made up this fact in your mind, and assume it to be true. quite frankly, that's you projecting.
we're bootstrapped and we pay people higher salaries to incentivize them to work for a smaller, "unstable" company. if we raised money tomorrow nobody's salary would change. my salary as a founder probably wouldn't change. i'm pretty sure that anything beyond a nice dinner to cap the occasion, i.e. just paying ourselves more because some new money showed up, would be frowned upon pretty heavily by anyone investing money.
and i am aware of several name-brand funded companies that pay people less than market just for the privilege of having their company on a resume.
bootstrapping doesn't mean "be a cheapskate and pay everyone under market" it means "earning and using revenues to grow the company at the early stages and possibly beyond". you can bootstrap and pay people above market salaries, or pay yourself a wildly inflated salary if you are the owner.
you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how modern small businesses work, probably because you have never run one.