2019-02-10 15:27 — By Erik van Eykelen
1/4) I bootstrapped my first company (MediaPoint) in the early 90s. We went up against a competitor (Scala) flush with money. The concept of venture capital was not known to us. For years we didn't understand the source of their capital.
2/4) I clearly remember that Scala published a glossy magazine late 1991. We were floored, how were the able to do pay for this? I kept the magazine all those years and just scanned it (28 MB PDF): https://t.co/X8jlooXZvB
3/4) We reached parity with their platform, with a team of just 3 full-time and 2 part-time folks, mostly devs. Our product was sold in 21 countries and by all means (for us) a success. Commodore's demise ended MediaPoint (btw: we carried on, it didn't kill us).
4/4) It was only years later that I finally understood that probably venture funding must have been the source of their capital, besides revenue. Somehow it made me even prouder of our achievements. We took the north face to climb the mountain.
