Bootstrapping on the side

I have gone down the bootstrapping path and I have raised money from investors. There is no right answer, and each founder/business has to make their own decisions based on personal and professional needs. However, I can say starting a business on the side while you are employed and enjoying the work you do in employment can be great.

I love my job. I'm not going anywhere. That said, I know someday I will be ready to move on. Ideally, I'll move on to something of my own. To prepare for that day, I've been building side projects. Most have largely been small experiments, not actual businesses.

That all changed with Orbiter.

Orbiter is a return to the old days of hosting websites. A step back away from the 2 minute builds and error-prone deployment pipelines. Orbiter is making the web fun again by making web hosting simple again.

When I decided to start Orbiter with a friend, I had a feeling this one was one we should turn into a legitimate business. But we were (and are) both employed full time. That meant we had to make sure not to let the work on Orbiter interfere with our day jobs, even if we were leaning into this business more than we had other side projects.

So far, we've managed this by building in the mornings, nights, and on weekends. We are both efficient in coding and in writings/marketing. So, we're able to put out features and try to get in front of our target market without even though we can't work 40 hours a week on the project.

The ultimate goal is to build the business slowly over time, and then, assuming we can do that well, work on it full time when the business will sustain us both. So, while raising money allows you to go full time sooner, bootstrapping is less pressure and gives you room to create multiple paths forward.