February 15, 2021

Bootstrapped vs VC Backed — Starting Five Companies with Joseph Fung (#64)

by Michael Sebastian

Episode 64

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Building It Online Podcast

Bootstrapped vs VC Backed -- Starting Five Companies with Joseph Fung (#64)

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Is it more stressful to start a company by bootstrapping or with venture capital funding? In this episode, we interview Joseph Fung, founder of five different companies. Joseph shares his experience and highlights the pros and cons of bootstrapping vs. venture funding.

Some of the big takeaways of this episode are here:

Joseph explains from his experience the difference in point of view of the consequences of using other people’s money in a venture backed company and how the influence from other investors affects your decisions versus starting up a bootstrapped company.
A venture backed company faces different stressors than a bootstrap. it’s more difficult for a bootstrapped company to fail significantly whereas when venture backed companies start to fail, they tend to fail very quickly.
Is starting up a VC backed company something that someone new to business can do, or do you need experience with previous startup companies?
What is a B Corp, and can they help make the world a better place?

SHOW NOTES

How Joseph got his start in the entrepreneurial world (1:02)
The journey of launching a company and the transition toward productizing services (4:14)
The mindset and stressor differences between boot-strapped startups and venture capitalist-backed companies (10:20)
Whether starting a VC backed company is something a new entrepreneur can do or whether experience in business is needed first (16:14)
The social responsibility and ethics of running a business (20:02)
How B Corp functions and how they help make the world a better place (28:26)
Joseph’s day-to-day routines within the business he’s currently running (29:57)
The power of writing down your company’s core values (31:23)