founder stories

$20M/year & 100% bootstrapped In 2019, they were called "IDIOTS" as they were building a product that already existed. In 2023, their business is better than most VC-backed startups. Thread 🧵

I was at Amzn early '00s when we lost 95% of our market cap. Later at FB I negotiated a down-round in '09, and then in '12 our stock dropped 50% post-IPO. I was on the board of a public company that went bankrupt (Borders) and a start-up that went under (Hello). Some lessons: