Hmm. Didn't know that was a classic technique. Seems pretty specific and esoteric. Do you get that much?
Anyway, I thought I'd restated (in summary form) exactly what you'd claimed. If not, then please correct me.
And, I didn't add new criteria to exclude you. In fact I was accepting your definition of traction, whatever that may be. Personally, I would beg to differ--given that you have a number of paying customers of which you are rightfully proud--but no matter. It's clear that you felt you hadn't gotten any traction to speak of (i.e. that you were in an "early stage" of your start-up according to your comment), otherwise, you would not have bickered with my initial post.
So, in all, my comment accepted everything you said at face value, then declared it rare. So rare that the OP's point holds as a general statement (though there may be exceptions and you may be one of them).
I see you're now pushing back on that. That's cool. I don't believe it though. I just don't buy that so many early-stage companies sit around neglecting their businesses, but growing in spite of it. If you ask those founders more carefully constructed questions, I think you would find that either a.) when they neglected it, it started to die and they quickly tended to it or b.) they didn't totally neglect it, but found some minimal level of effort to maintain and/or grow it.
And FWIW, I've bootstrapped a start-up to success, so I also speak from personal experience. Even today when we slow down our promotional efforts our traffic (and business) starts to wane. And, that's far from complete neglect. Still, given enough time in that "mode" it will die.
Anyway, I thought I'd restated (in summary form) exactly what you'd claimed. If not, then please correct me.
And, I didn't add new criteria to exclude you. In fact I was accepting your definition of traction, whatever that may be. Personally, I would beg to differ--given that you have a number of paying customers of which you are rightfully proud--but no matter. It's clear that you felt you hadn't gotten any traction to speak of (i.e. that you were in an "early stage" of your start-up according to your comment), otherwise, you would not have bickered with my initial post.
So, in all, my comment accepted everything you said at face value, then declared it rare. So rare that the OP's point holds as a general statement (though there may be exceptions and you may be one of them).
I see you're now pushing back on that. That's cool. I don't believe it though. I just don't buy that so many early-stage companies sit around neglecting their businesses, but growing in spite of it. If you ask those founders more carefully constructed questions, I think you would find that either a.) when they neglected it, it started to die and they quickly tended to it or b.) they didn't totally neglect it, but found some minimal level of effort to maintain and/or grow it.
And FWIW, I've bootstrapped a start-up to success, so I also speak from personal experience. Even today when we slow down our promotional efforts our traffic (and business) starts to wane. And, that's far from complete neglect. Still, given enough time in that "mode" it will die.