Every few years, someone declares a new epoch in entrepreneurship. We’ve had the “Era of Lean,” the “Rise of the Micro-VC,” the “Democratization of Innovation,” and (God help us) the phase where every city believed a coworking space with a yellow logo and a couple late career bankers counted as a “startup ecosystem.”
With AI and criticism of VC throughout the past few years, I cringe at hearing that now is the era of bootstrap not because most founders weren’t bootstrapping but because saying it now is a use a data misrepresenting reality.
Article Highlights
The Era of the Bootstrapped Startup
Welcome to it everyone! Now, your bootstrapping is admirable (as though it wasn’t before). Now, people can really do it themselves (as though they weren’t able before). Don’t look behind the curtain at the fact that the overwhelming majority of all startups have always had to bootstrap, because now it’s an era!
No, it isn’t the era of the bootstrapped startup. And pretending otherwise is how regions misallocate money, how founders misunderstand capital markets, and how bad advice metastasizes into bad policy.
What we’re really experiencing is far less poetic. It’s arithmetic.
And a long-overdue correction to 14 years of terrible incentives.
If you want the TL;DR in one line:
It’s not the era of bootstrapping, it’s the era of more startups and finally better advice.
Let’s walk through the actual cycles because if we don’t ground this in data, history will repeat itself like a The Matrix.
How We Got Here: Two Cycles and a Lot of Disillusioned Founders
Around 2010–2012, cities across the U.S. (and abroad) were in full “Let’s Become Silicon Valley Too” mode. The Kauffman Foundation reported record entrepreneurship rates while the Brookings Institution published reams of research urging regional innovation policy such as, “Rise of Innovation Districts.”
Those weren’t inherently bad.
The problem was how local actors interpreted them.
We entered two seven-year cycles that shaped founder psychology in ways we still haven’t fully unwound. By the way, in startups, it’s helpful to think in terms of 7-year cycles (when they start and end isn’t as important as philosophically appreciating that it takes startups 7-10 years for startups to exit, build enduring companies, or establish new innovation; hence, 15 years = roughly 2 cycles of lessons).
Cycle 1: The Accelerator Gold Rush (2010–2017)
Everyone built an accelerator. Some good. Many dreadful. Most modeled themselves after Techstars or Y Combinator but replaced actual investor networks with “mentors” who were, at best, middle-manager consultants. At worst, people who genuinely believed owning a coworking space made them a venture capitalist.
Founders were told:
- Quit your job
- Pay a membership fee
- Give up 1 percent
- And we’ll “connect you to investors”
It was the Oprah meme brought to life:
“You get funding, and you get funding…”
Except the trunk was empty.
Regions mistook startup participation for startup capacity; exactly why I dug into how ecosystem builders create meaningful startup communities.
Cycle 2: “VC is Broken” (2017–2024)
When accelerators didn’t deliver introductions to VCs (because they couldn’t) founders naturally got pissed.
Meanwhile, new funds were popping up labeling themselves “pre-seed VCs,” which is the linguistic equivalent of “jumbo shrimp.” Pre-seed wasn’t a stage; it was marketing to inexperienced founders.
By 2020, the trope had hardened:
“VC is broken.”
But NVCA data never supported that narrative. Early-stage venture remained a power-law game, with a small number of startups receiving most of the capital.
VC wasn’t broken. How do we know? We asked… VC wasn’t willing to take the risks on your ecosystem because what had preceded had peed in the pool
The expectation that it was available to everyone was broken.
The Startup Math That People Keep Misreading
If you want to understand why everyone thinks we’re in a “bootstrap era,” ignore Twitter analysts and dumb down the math to a simple scenario:
2005:
- 100 founders
- 10 got angel
- 1 got venture
- 89 bootstrapped or died
2015:
Because accelerators pumped more people into trying entrepreneurship:
- 200 founders (not 100 more; what we mean is that 10 years later, twice as many were trying)
- 20 got angel
- 2 got venture
- 178 bootstrapped or died
2025:
More people than ever are attempting a startup (reports now show the highest new-business formation rates in 40 years).
- 300 founders (highest rate per capita yet)
- 30 get angel
- 3 get venture
- 267 bootstrapped or died
Bootstrapping didn’t rise as a strategy.
It was exposed through a denominator problem.
You have more voices. More frustrated founders. More failed accelerator alumni. More people discovering that “pre-seed VC” doesn’t exist outside coastal metros and that capital markets don’t abide by motivational-speaker fantasies.
Of course it feels like a bootstrapping era.
That’s because there are more people not getting funded, not because bootstrapping suddenly became vogue.
So, Are Founders Suddenly Bootstrapping? No.
Bad actors got weeded out.
The accelerators that charged rent instead of adding value? Dying.
The “mentors” who gave advice based on a single exit in 1998? Retired again.
The local angels who thought convertible notes were witchcraft? Fading.
And thanks to more credible research, venture-backing now meets reality:
- Most people don’t get funded.
- Most shouldn’t pursue venture.
- Most should bootstrap.
Not because we’re in a new era.
Because we’re finally telling the truth.
Entrepreneurship is not supposed to begin with fundraising; it’s supposed to begin with value creation, and everyone bootstraps their way there. Instead of chasing VC or complaining it’s broken, all because some local advisor told you they’d introduce investors, founders are doing what they’ve been doing since Oog sold a rock to Ugg, doing it themselves.
Myths Are Dangerous for Cities and Ecosystem Builders
If economic-development leaders believe we’re in an “Era of Bootstrapping,” they’ll misinterpret what’s actually happening.
We don’t have:
- more bootstrappers by preference
We have: - more founders discovering that they were misled
And if cities think this is the “bootstrap era,” they’ll create yet another cycle of misguided programming (celebrating romantic founder martyrdom instead of building the actual infrastructure required for capital readiness).
Bootstrapping is not the new frontier.
It’s the baseline. It always was.
VC is not broken.
Expectations were.
And accelerators didn’t democratize entrepreneurship.
They democratized attempts at entrepreneurship.
The Era We’re In: The Age of Competent Advice
After 14 years of noise, hype, inflated expectations, bad mentors, and worse incentives, the market is finally catching up to what Silicon Valley has known since the 1970s:
- Venture financing is for a tiny percentage of companies
- Angels fill the narrow gap just before revenue
- Everyone else builds their business the normal way:
by making money having built from scratch
Bootstrapping isn’t new. What’s new is clarity. Entrepreneurship, successful entrepreneurship, depends on being clear about these distinctions so that founders who can’t or shouldn’t raise capital, get the advice and direction they need while investors are meaningfully aligned with fundable opportunities and outcomes.
If founders today finally know they won’t get funded…
If accelerators can’t sell false hope anymore…
If cities are waking up to the importance of real entrepreneurial capacity…
What would our ecosystems look like if the last 15 years hadn’t taught people the wrong lesson about how startups get built?
We know the answers and we know how, it starts with being honest about your ecosystem so that you can work with people, programs, and policies best suited to what needs to be done there.
Gabriel Vázquez Torres my pleasure; this really matters. VC is as prolific as ever – it’s meant for certain things. Getting this wrong makes entrepreneurship more difficult for everyone.