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Founder Reality with George Pu. Real talk from a technical founder building AI-powered businesses in the trenches. No highlight reel, no startup theater – just honest insights from someone who codes, ships, and scales.
Every week, George breaks down the messy, unfiltered decisions behind building a bootstrap software company. From saying yes to projects you don't know how to build, to navigating AI hype vs. reality, to the mental models that actually matter for technical founders.
Whether you're a developer thinking about starting a company, a founder scaling your first product, or a technical leader building AI features, this show gives you the frameworks and hard-won lessons you won't find in the startup content circus.
George Pu is a software engineer turned founder building multiple AI-powered businesses. He's bootstrapped companies, shipped products that matter, and learned the hard way what works and what's just noise.
Follow along as he builds in public and shares what's really happening behind the scenes.
New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
George Pu (00:00)
So another friend of mine, founder friend of mine startup just got acquired, you know, which is obviously, obviously very good news. And I'm really happy for him and the team. And some acquisitions has been happening around my friend's circle, at least for the past, will say two, three years. ⁓ I personally can count at least five founders who I know. And, and also of course founders, I do not know, but obviously been following their steps on Twitter and on different platforms.
You know, Rahul is one of them. He's the founder and CEO of superhuman, which is like, if you don't know the email AI platform, right. That basically email client that it's better than Gmail. I've been using superhuman I think since 2021 as well as it's been about almost four years. So his startup also recently just got acquired by Grammarly. I don't personally know Rahul, right? Obviously I was very excited about their product pipelines and everything that's happening. But one thing that got me a little bit wary.
for all those acquisitions is that none of those acquisitions have a price point, right? None of those acquisitions have a price is closed, right? Is it hundred million dollars? Is it a $50 million? Is it a $30 million, right? And for my friend who's obviously raised, you know, I think many of them has raised seed and pre-seed and none of them as far as I know have raised series A. So how much are those acquisitions, right? If it's not being disclosed, is it a few million? Is it hundreds of thousands? Is it less than that? Is it just an aqua hire with no money disclosed?
We don't really know that, you know, and the reason why I'm wary about it is because I don't actually know how my friends did well or not. Right. And I'm feeling anxious for them and I haven't really been catching up with them, you know, until a few weeks later, but I'm really wishing them to getting the most out of their founder journey and I'll be feel sad for them if they don't, you know, and also just because this has happened so much in the past two, two months, you know, and, also in the last two years, right. Last two months, two of my friends startup got acquired.
You know, past two years, four or five my friends startups got acquired. It's all successful quote unquote successful acquisitions, right? But all with no numbers acquired, announced. And I've done some research online as well, obviously regarding this. And as a bootstrap founder myself, know, acquisition is not something that's really in my world, at least, at least not this time. So I learned some things. Apparently when the acquisition price is not yet announced, it's usually because they're not really that good of a news for founders. And in this episode, I want to talk about.
What's really happening in this market as we're looking ahead, you know, in the rest of 2025 and also 2026 and why I personally believe bootstrap startups and the ones if you're building a bootstrap startup, why I still think bootstrap founders have the best setup in the next five years and why I personally believe that starting over in your thirties is not really a good business strategy.
So apparently, as you all know, four years ago is a complete different climate. 2020 and 2021 was the biggest bubble, I guess, you know, only second to the NASDAQ dot com bubble. I've known many founders in 2021, 2022. And to be quite honest, and the reason was because I was also looking to raise for SimpleDirect at this time. We were just like, I think a two year old startup company. We were really excited. I think we were really new. We applied to like Y Combinator, think two, three times around those three years, two times, I believe.
And both of times we got an interview and both the times we didn't make it after the interview. So that was another interesting story. However, you know, I was, we were also planning to raise VC funding at a time. So I personally have used crunch base, I personally have used LinkedIn and I personally have downloaded, you know, used pitch book as well to research what other founders have recently raised capital. And I had a podcast at a time. it's called, it was called the George Poo show, which was discontinued. but I was basically interviewing some really great, amazing founders.
So some founders obviously are raising at 10, 20, 50 times revenue multiples. And some founders where you're younger than me, you know, raising more than that. So I was really impressed with what they were working on. So I genuinely wanted to connect with those founders. And also, of course, they were very generous as well. When I asked, do you know about this VC? Can you give me an introduction? And they were always, always happy to do it. So I've interviewed many founders and I stay friends with so many founders, even to this day, they have products, customers, and some decent revenue.
So in the past week, two of my friends got acquired and one of the friends I just spoke with him last week actually, and he was essentially sharing with me that, you know, things are going well. I'm looking to grow further. We just signed a big partnership and know, revenue is going to quadruple. And you know, those are obviously very optimistic and I obviously know that, you know, things are a little bit tough right now. So it's really good that my founder friends doing that well, but then, you know, boom acquisition announcements, you know,
for my founder friend and I was just like left a little bit confused. Not because, you know, I want to be happy for my friend. I am happy for him, but I really, as I said, I don't, I'm not sure I understand how the deal went, you know, how much is it? Who is this new company that acquired you? I haven't heard of them. Like, are they good? Is it all stock? Is it cash? You know, when acquisition got announced, usually like just this past week, OpenAI had bought a hardware startup for I think a billion dollars. So that was announced and there was also a few other acquisitions announced with the price.
So that's a win for the founders and that was win for investors. So I know, I guess what no one else usually means. It just means that founders are the ones getting squeezed, you know, not rewarded because if you, if you are startup founder and you have raised country capital, your investors are usually the first ones to get liquidated. Right. When the liquidation even happens, they're the first ones to get paid out. Right. And obviously if your shares are decided a split between multiple co-founders, but all my odd
of the founders, you know, that I've just mentioned, I know they have multiple co-founders, so they obviously have to spit the rest with the employees and then with the co-founders. So the check that eventually got to their hand is probably not as big. And you also have to consider taxes, right? And also we're not in a crazy, you know, we're not in a crazy cycle right now. So the only thing that's been really booming is AI. ⁓
And everything else, unfortunately, I guess my friend startups, they were not related specifically to AI. So that makes me even more wary about how actually the deal went. Right. And as we all know, the free money era is over. But it is in 2020, 2021, 2022, that raised significant valuations. They're facing the reality right now, unfortunately, they cannot raise follow on rounds. have not seen any round announced on my LinkedIn for a very, very long time. I think at least two or three years.
Back when there's what, 2020, 2021, every time I open my LinkedIn, I refresh, will see some new founders raising, you know, 6 million pre seed, 8 million seed, 10 million seed, 15 million seed. You see everything, right? However, I just feel really unfortunate on a personal level that so many founders are now being quote unquote acquired, right? Probably for not a good deal for them by the end. And for me, if I put myself in their shoe, many of those founders have spent a significant amount of time. Let's say you have raised during the pandemic, it was 2020.
And then you hustle yourself for five years, you pay the salaries, you pay the vendors, you pay the employees. And then at the end you were acquired for a very low amount, right? Assuming that you really don't get anything for yourself. And that's the part where I feel really sad, but most importantly, your time, your five years, right? Of your life it's gone. And I sort of understand as well, you know, for my own startup, as, as I've shared with you guys, there's always learning curves for me and we are doing a huge pivot right now.
We just updated our website today, actually, with Simple Direct. So if you go to getsimpledirect.com, you'll see exactly what's our new setup. We just made a new pivot. However, if I have investors on my board, you know, if I have like, you know, advisors, investors, VCs, obviously there wouldn't, I would not be able to go for new direction that quickly. There will be significant pushbacks and even, you know, threats of lawsuits, right? Eventually. So having venture capital money typically just means that you cannot move fast enough. And that's the unfortunate part.
And for my founder friends, think pivot, it's not really a good option for them. Some of them I changed their names. Some of them I changed their revenue models. Some of them had changed their business models and all that. However, it was just very hard for them to actually switch into something else. And eventually they didn't work out. And I think that was just a sad part. So, you know, if your company got acquired for 5 million, you know, it sounds decent, but you have raised a safe 3 million over multiple rounds. The VCs get their money back.
First to the condition preferences, 3 million goes to VC, 2 million less to spit. If you own 50%, which is a lot, if you do own 50 % after dilution, you get 1 million, right? And after taxes, you know, you're walking over with probably $500,000, $600,000 after working three to four years building a company, right? And those founders are the most amazing people in the world. You know, they could have worked at Google, they could have worked at Uber, Microsoft or anything else.
And they would have made more money just by taking a senior engineering job at Google or all these companies. I'm not saying I'm right. I obviously made many mistakes in the bootstrapping journey, but this is also why I'm so focused on a bootstrapping approach with both of my companies, you know, with ANC and also with SimpleDirect, right? Partly obviously because we failed at fundraising back in 2022 when the market was hot and then not hot. But I think moreover, was more because discipline, because we don't have that much money. So we have to force ourselves.
to make enough money or to survive. Right. And that build resilience, you know, more than anything. So when I see my founder friends get quote unquote rescued, you know, by those acquisitions, it is somehow like a validation as well for the bootstrapping founders, especially, you know, not for my quote unquote success. I don't think myself, I don't think myself as a successful person, but just because of the bootstrapping, I think that the mentality of bootstrap founders about, okay, we don't exit grow, we compound, right.
I also feel I think that philosophy is super important. And another company I remember very clearly, you know, in the all in pod, know, Jason was, guess not making fun of, but he was like, basically saying the base camp guys, right? So base camp is a company basically founded by two co-founders from 1999 and they've been keeping.
profitable and you know, making money since 1999. However, I remember, I remember very clearly, I think it was during the pandemic, Jason from the all in pot basically said, you know, these guys, I really feel sad for them because look at Asana, look at like billions of dollars evaluations, Asana is able to raise, right? And you know, look at today, you know, who won? Let me actually look at, how much is Asana stock right now? The market cap is 3 billion and over this year, Asana is down 32%.
How much is really left and is this company eventually going to go bankrupt? Right. If the, the stock prices drop 50 % in over the past year or so, Osana has over 1,819 employees and Basecamp, think they have 60 people. see how much Basecamp makes. Basecamp's revenue reached $280 million in 2024. So divide that, you know, by the employee head count about how much revenue this company is generating per employee.
That is crazy. And as a founder, you know, for Jason and DHH, those two founders, they get to split a lot of that money, right? They can reinvest it, obviously they can pay themselves dividends and they have total control over how that 280 million goes. Whereas, you know, for Asana, it's a company that's probably going to go bankrupt in the next couple of years. If, if my projection holds, right? I always don't wish of anybody going bankrupt. I just don't see a competitive advantage and go in public, right? What's the valuation of Asana? So Asana was basically
$3 billion. And then I think it was originally $5.5 billion, a direct, direct listing in 2020. And, know, I'm sure they were almost $10 billion or something like that. So it's the market cycle of the 1990s and the market cycle of the 2000s and 2010s. People are seeing, you know, Google is working. must have seen Google is working. People are seeing Uber is working, right? People are seeing Facebook is working. Microsoft is working in public market. And I think everybody's defaulted to believe that.
The same thing is going to carry through in a 2020s. But as you, if you have followed my journey, you obviously know my stand. My stand is that after Tech BT, obviously everything that we know about the startup world has changed. And we're seeing those IPOs in really bad markets, right? Per se. And we're seeing traditional companies like Salesforce, know, Asana and others, they're still struggling. They're actually struggling monday.com. They're struggling, right? So that just gives me more validation.
Why I personally believe both strapping is the way to go, especially for starting a company now in 2025. Or if you have started a company in the past couple of years and you haven't really raised, I personally believe this is the best time to build a startup that's both strapped and not a venture backed company. Right. I firmly, I firmly believe that. And, you know, for me myself, I never thought about, you know, exiting in my whole life. So I think at any single point, if I do have to exit ANC or symbol direct.
It's probably because it is something wrong and I either got fired or I just lose hope and I don't want to do it anymore. I don't see either of those cases going true. If those two companies do work, I want to keep running them for the rest of my life. Right. Just like Warren Buffett is running Berkshire. want to run those two companies for rest of my life. And also I think post-trapping, the good thing is you don't have to start over. Right. And think about the energy during in this cycle. So some of my friends that's assuming there are some companies that just recently got exited or went bankrupt or didn't work out.
The founder actually has to spend about five years, you know, building a company and six to 12 months of just to raise another round of venture capital, you know, three to six months of just talking to potential acquisition costs and getting acquired for much less than you hoped, getting acquired for much less than you have just raised. And let's assume you're in your thirties or mid thirties or late thirties or early forties. You know, you had to start over again. Right. And I personally have thought about starting over again, just putting myself in those fun issues. I think it's really difficult, especially.
having like a sort of exit in which you're not that successful. It's just really hard to think about starting over again. Right. I recently, as you all know, are thinking about changing a lot of things for Simple Direct. And for some, you know, for a very brief period of time, it almost started feeling like I have to start over and I feel super, super dreaded and demotivated about how would I start over? spent, you know, five years building the company, right? How would I
be able to start over. So I think that's probably the same feeling that many of the founders I've known, many of the founders who just exited are feeling right now. And unfortunately, if you're playing the venture capital game, you have to also play the game of macroeconomics. And that is not something that any of us can control, you know, in a brute force. And we all know investing, we have diversification, we have portfolio theories and portfolio management. However, as founders, if the moment you choose to take on venture capital, to take on capital to go forward,
You're basically putting yourself essentially as a chess for other chess players, AKA VCs, private equity, investors, and you have to move according to the market forces or how the VCs and your investors want you to move. And that's unfortunately the truth for many companies I've raised that I personally talked to. So you're not able to focus on building, right? I have been, you know, for all my flaws, you know, I've been able to focus a hundred percent of my energy on product, on customers and profitability.
because I'm not spending months in investor meetings or board meetings or board member management and acquisition due diligence. So we also have plenty of cash in the bank right now for at least four or five years of our runways, if not more. It seems small though, because we don't burn a lot of cash compared to those bigger teams. Think of Asana, thousand-ish employees, how much money do they burn per month? It must be a crazy amount. So for us, yes, our revenue is not as high.
However, we do have a lot of wrong ways and we do have, you know, ⁓ actual ownership, just like Basecamp, right? Of the actual businesses. It's not diluted equity in companies that just need rescue operations. Doornash Cofine I think owns 0.23%, if I remember it correctly. And just think of that, let that sink in for a second, right? They raised, think series G before they went public and they became even more diluted after the win for series G and became public. So are you able to stomach that 0.3 %?
It's just a really difficult game for me to play. You know, if you're a public company, it is obviously also most scrutiny. Some people think it's a good problem to have, but for me, I just personally think of it as like another, just far more compliance lawsuits and other things to deal with. It's just not really being a founder and the money might not even be worth it. Right. I personally do believe there's a complete new playbook for this market. First, if you're a founder, just like me, you have to build for profitability from day one. And this is not actually.
Unconventional wisdom, right? So the Basecamp founders, the two founders have spoke about this from day one. I think they wrote about it in 1999 at the height of the dotcom bubble, right? They could have raised very easily by putting dotcom on their name, you know, basecamp.com or something. They would have raised a lot of money and went bust in the 2000s. However, they stick through all these years, you know, it's for all of us founders. It's not just a path to profitability, right? It's not path to profitability. It's actual profitability. You know, when the market gets tough.
Profit is the only thing that matters. Right? Second, I think you need to keep your team small and efficient. The companies are getting acquired right now. They all have probably the same problem. They scaled headcount faster than revenue, right? Expenses faster than revenue also, and they probably just couldn't follow fast enough. And I think the third point I have in mind is that you need to really build for control and not for growth. Right? So growth is the old playbook here. Everyone saw what Google did, what Facebook did, and every venture capital in the past decade has been focusing on growth until three years ago.
So I think you need to be really, really careful about the equity percentage you give away. Right. I am personally, I've taken that so much more seriously since three years ago. I almost gave 15 % of my capital away for investors for 20 or $50,000. You know, and then that happened, right. It is one of the negotiations I would have gone through, right. But obviously giving away that much percent for just a quarter of a million dollars. Now thinking back, it's like, what the heck was I thinking? You know, and obviously it's much better to own as a founder.
100 % of a 5 million company, right? Then 20 % of a 25 million company because you don't have real control, you know, think about that for a second, right? You might be molded out. I think lastly, try to think in decades. I know it's really hard, right? Try to think in decades, try to think in years if you really couldn't, right? Don't think in quarters, don't think in months, don't think in weeks, right? Don't just try to follow the trend and do something new because the trend is saying so. You have to have real moat and you need to have a real
roadmap, right? So for simple track and ANC, I've personally have the roadmap of running them for the next few decades. And I think almost every day I've been thinking about how to do that, you know, and I personally believe I have a roadmap and you know, I think you should too, if you're actually serious about running a bull strip company, right? And look, I'm not saying yes, because I think I'm smarter than other people or I'm smarter than my friends. I'm really happy that it got acquired. I really hope the deal they got is great, but I've just personally watched so many talented founders work for free essentially for so many years.
When it could have better opportunities like working at Google and having work life balance, right. And not having to struggle for so many years, just ended up empty and starting over in their thirties. I feel sad about that. I love founders for all my life. Like I love talking to them. I love engaging with them. It's just like the best group people I've ever met. And I personally still believe there has to be a better way. And I think if you're listening to this, I think the better way is to be built, be building profitable, controlled and compounding business.
But hopefully you never have to exit unless you choose to. If you're building right now, ask yourself, you know, can I do this with smaller size comp team? Can I, am I building for exits or am I thinking for decades? Or am I thinking years or quarters or months? Right? What would happen if I couldn't raise them one more round and do I actually need outside capital right now? You know, if you're thinking about starting a company, consider the bull strike path seriously, right? Because you don't want to start over every few years just because the market changes and it has nothing to do with you.
You know, while my friends are talented, I really think, and they all bounce back. They unfortunately had to start over again at 30. And, you meanwhile, I personally do believe that every month that I'm building on what I, is building on what I built last month, you know, I'm building on the foundations of my companies and every month, every day, I try to make my company better. And that is a consistency and advantage you can take of the bullstrap path. So if this resonates with you, or if you're a bullstrap founder with similar market dynamics, I would love to hear from you. Paint me obviously on Twitter.
the George Poo on Twitter. And you can also shoot me an email by george at founderreality.com. As always, I'll see you next time.