There are funds trying to succeed at the many-small-successes model of investing - personally I am skeptical (from my own experience) because the natural failure rate is so high (before stressors due to investors). Edit: and there is a strong negative selection bias - small software businesses asking for money is a loud signal that they are much less likely to be successful at all IMHO. Relevant article about Mittelstands ”We need a middle class for startups”: https://neilthanedar.com/we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups... and my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31350478
> small software businesses asking for money is a loud signal that they are much less likely to be successful at all IMHO
Money doesn't seem like the main benefit to going through YC (otherwise there are lots of other investment firms one could approach). The main advantage seems to be the network, connections, and expertise on running a business.
Sure, if I had another 30K I'd have an extra year of runway, which can be pretty valuable right now. But I suspect solo-bootstrapping without a good VC will result in a lot of friction at points that a specialist VC would be well-suited to assist with (providing standard ToS, verifying compliance, business structure boilerplate, etc)
Amazing video on bootstrapping: https://youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw
There are funds trying to succeed at the many-small-successes model of investing - personally I am skeptical (from my own experience) because the natural failure rate is so high (before stressors due to investors). Edit: and there is a strong negative selection bias - small software businesses asking for money is a loud signal that they are much less likely to be successful at all IMHO. Relevant article about Mittelstands ”We need a middle class for startups”: https://neilthanedar.com/we-need-a-middle-class-for-startups... and my comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31350478