I founder friend I’ve known for years reminded me that bootstrapping my company forced me to apply discipline in building my company differently than other founders who were focused on growth (and raising capital from investors). I’ve thought about this a bit, and he’s right.

The margin of error was much smaller for my company. If we ran out of cash, that was it. Game over. Paranoia forced me to dive into learning the numbers early in the company’s life cycle and focus on adding to our cash (i.e., turning a profit).

This type of management style wasn’t always in favor when profitability was less of a priority than growth. After my conversation with my buddy, I’m wondering if that will change. Will founders with a more disciplined approach to running and growing companies be more in demand?