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Why is there this overwhelmingly anti-bootstrapping sentiment present in the startup community? What's so wrong with taking outside funding?



If you take outside funding, you're not bootstrapping. According to Wikipedia:

"Bootstrapping in business means starting a business without external help or capital."

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping#Business

There is nothing wrong with taking outside funding, but then you don't get to call it bootstrapping any more (as per the widely-accepted definition above of what the term means).

This is mixing up terms.


I should have clarified that I was trying to ask a more general question as to why bootstrapping is seen as a superior way of starting a company as opposed to taking on funding.




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