As you probably know by now, AppSignal, the company I co-founded, raised $22 million in a Series A not too long ago. Overnight, I was no longer the bootstrapper I had proudly identified as since 1998. Enter cognitive dissonance.
For years, whenever someone asked about AppSignal's origins, I would share how we built the company without any outside investment. That detail wasn't just trivia; it was a point of pride. We were one of the few bootstrapped SaaS companies that had grown to this scale, and the realization that we had joined the ranks of the funded hit me harder than expected.
Although we had grown AppSignal to serve over 2,000 customers, signing the final paperwork made me feel uncomfortable, almost like I had betrayed myself. I thought back to when Thijs and I each invested €1,000 of our own money in 2002. That humble start grew into a hosting and consulting business, which eventually evolved into a multi-million-euro SaaS company. I've been deeply proud of that, and even though raising money shouldn't diminish it in any way, it felt like it did.
The Fear of Becoming Them
Now we had joined the crowd, the companies that raise and scale and eventually seem to lose the thread with the people who trusted them early on. That was the fear: that the funding would transform us into one of them, that we'd lose touch with what made us different.
What Stays the Same
It took time and soul-searching, but eventually I realized that raising funds doesn't mean abandoning our principles. We can still choose resourcefulness over excess, think in years instead of quarters, and stay relentlessly focused on our customers. None of that is determined by who funded us.
Being funded doesn't erase where we came from. It gives us the means to scale what we believe in. I'm not sure the dissonance fully goes away, but it's quieter now, and that feels like enough.