Things I really think we need to rollback include social media, which on paper seems like a good idea, but doesn't work well in practise. The same goes (highly) commercialized TV. The 24 hour news-cycle isn't providing any real value, but is still immensely harmful. You can just avoid those thing, but many people can't, they are mentally not equipped to do so. Even those of us who think that we're in control of our media consumption will often catch ourself slipping.
We've created a world that we can't mentally handle, but we're not willing to rollback the inventions that are clearly harmful, because they are profitable and we're bored. We can barely manage gambling, we not even trying to manage or just label media.
Think of how many parents now want their kids not to have a smartphone or social media. There's genuine, well researched evidence that this would be good. But there's also real harm to kids who see all their friends with iPhones and Instagram. It might sound silly to us but it's definitely real feeling to the kids.
A lot of the parents who let their kids use smartphones and social media probably could be easily convinced that it's a bad idea, they just don't know. Or they don't know how bad it is, and so something else, like displaying status via a nice phone, they value more highly.
But until we can reach critical mass, and fight the (not insignificant, and quite intentional) momentum to use social media, it will be hard.
100% agree. Also, I'm completely fine with it. Money is not the end goal to me.
> you’re adding existential risk to the business with your current strategy.
There's risk in any strategy. The VC playbook of "grow quickly" carries its own dangers: product enshittification, cultural rot, jeopardizing the very thing that made the business work in the first place...
> I’ve noticed over the years that as a general rule some European founders proudly care less about growth than American ones
I don't know if it's a Europe/America cultural difference. Probably, to some extent. We do care a lot about how we spend our lives outside of business. There’s a whole world beyond work that’s worth protecting :)
> If any mid-size company with functional distribution and tech wanted to take your business away, they could.
But why would they? For a "mere" €6.5M/year? We can optimize for the niche that the big players aren't even interested in. Being small and "ignorable" is its own form of defense.
> "in software it's grow or die."
I’m fine with this framing too, honestly. If this business ever runs its course, we have enough runway, experience, and optionality to start something new. There’s no inherent value to me in making a piece of software last for centuries.
What does matter is having a clear and fair exit plan for customers when that moment eventually comes.
> I hope you are writing the 20 year retrospective happily in 10 years from now
We'll see! :) Thanks for a genuinely thoughtful reply — I can tell where you're coming from. These are doubts I've wrestled with for years, and still do. I just keep landing in the same place (for now!).
Having previously existed in the VC-backed startup world, one thing I don't miss is the belief that its the _only_ rational way to run a business. In reality there are a lot of dangers to that approach, like you pointed out.
VCs _need_ promising businesses to join their portfolio, so they'll always be trying to convince you to raise money and have a tiny shot at making it big. If you fail, well, you're just one business in their portfolio, another one will pick up the loss. But it's the _only_ company you have, so you are doing the right thing by growing sustainably.
There's something extremely freeing about running a bootstrapped business and knowing you don't _need_ anyone to keep it running. Cheers to the next 10 years for you and your team.