In an unstable economy, the classic startup model with venture rounds is gradually giving way to a more pragmatic approach. Today, those who know how to test hypotheses quickly, economically launch a product and go to the first sales as early as possible win. In this article, we will tell you how to build an IT product with an audience of thousands without external investment and why bootstrapping is becoming a strategy for a new generation of technology companies.
The venture capital market is changing
In recent years, attracting investment in the early stages has become much more difficult. According to analysts, in 2025 the volume of venture capital investments in Russian startups amounted to $159 million, which is 10% less than the previous year. A particularly noticeable decrease in activity occurred at the seed stage.
Similar trends are observed in the global market. More than half of all seed investments in the first quarter of 2025 fell on rounds of $10 million or more. In fact, modern seed rounds are increasingly reminiscent of the seven-year-old Series A. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult for novice entrepreneurs to count on external funding at the start, and bootstrapping turns from an alternative scenario into a basic launch model.
Cheap MVP as the new normal
Approaches to creating a product have also changed. If earlier the launch required serious costs already at the development stage, today the cost of creating a minimally viable product has significantly decreased due to the spread of AI builders and no-code platforms.
In the Russian market, the cost of custom development of the basic MVP by traditional methods varies from 600 thousand to 4 million rubles. Using AI based tools can reduce these costs tenfold and significantly speed up hypothesis testing.
At the same time, the savings should be reasonable. Practice shows that at the start you can abandon expensive infrastructure, office and expanded staff. For example, one of the projects in the field of speech processing began work with a prototype based on a messenger platform worth only 15,000 rubles. It took about $15,000 to break even within five months
However, there are areas that cannot be saved. First of all, we are talking about the reliability of the payment system and the ability of the product to fulfill its key function consistently. Errors in these areas can negate all the benefits of quick launch.
AI lowers entry threshold
The development of AI has significantly simplified the launch of IT products. Micro-services and automation tools are growing most rapidly today, allowing solving specific user tasks without creating complex technological platforms.
AI assistants have already become a full-fledged development tool. According to research, 84% of developers use AI tools and complete tasks on average 55% faster. The AI development tool market itself is estimated at $7.37 billion in 2025 and is projected to grow to $30.1 billion by 2032.
Increasingly, instead of creating complex solutions from scratch, entrepreneurs are using ready-made technologies and concentrating on demand testing. An illustrative example of the Lovable platform, which by February 2026 reached $400 million in annual revenue. In our practice, one of the additional products in the summer of 2025 was almost completely created using AI and attracted 15,000 active users.
At the same time, the widespread notion that AI can replace technical expertise remains a misconception. AI helps speed up work, but does not remove responsibility for the architecture, safety and quality of the product. Code errors can still cause critical failures.
Speed over idea
To launch without external investment, it is not the uniqueness of the idea or the scale of the idea that is crucial, but the speed of entering the market and the ability to find the first customers.
Statistics show that about 90% of startups fail, and 75% of venture-funded projects do not return invested funds to investors. Among the closed startups, 70% call the reason for the lack of money, but a deeper analysis shows other root problems. In 43% of cases, we are talking about the lack of compliance of the product with the needs of the market, in 29% of cases the reason is the wrong choice of the moment to launch, in another 19% of projects the key role is played by the unstable unit economy.
Therefore, release speed becomes one of the most important factors for survival. The sooner the product reaches users, the faster the team receives feedback and understands how the chosen direction corresponds to market demand.
From first customers to scale
Modern tools allow to shorten the path from MVP to first sales to a few weeks. According to research, AI-native startups are three times more likely to reach $1 million in annual revenue in just six months compared to traditional SaaS companies. One of the most famous examples of recent years is Bolt.new, which was able to reach $4 million in annual revenue just four weeks after launch.
Approaches to checking demand have also changed. Many entrepreneurs start selling before they write the code, using landing pages and waiting lists to gauge audience interest. However, even in the era of automation, personal interaction with users remains a critical element of growth. In practice, the first customers often come through direct communication, product demos and feedback gathering. So, in one of the projects, organic traffic began to grow actively only six months after launch and subsequently reached 88%.
A similar principle works when forming a team. It makes sense to expand the staff after confirming the viability of the product. In one of the projects, the team gradually grew from three people to a department of 15 specialists after the business model proved its effectiveness.
When to ditch investors
Divestment is not always a forced solution. In many cases, this is a deliberate strategy to maintain control of the business. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 50% of new companies continue to work five years after their founding. Among venture startups, survival rates are often lower due to the need to demonstrate rapid growth and meet investor expectations.
The history of the technology market knows many successful examples of development without external capital. Mailchimp has been developing without investment for 20 years and was eventually sold for $12 billion. Russian JetBrains built a multimillion-dollar business solely at the expense of its own profit. Ecwid, founded in Ulyanovsk, was sold for $500 million.
The absence of investors allows to finance new products at the expense of the profits of the existing business and independently determine the development strategy. However, there are situations where capital raising is justified. An illustrative example is Zapier: it attracted only $1.3 million in seed investment and subsequently reached an estimate of $5 billion.
Bootstrapping ceases to be an effective tool in cases where a company requires aggressive market capture or a significant cash gap arises when scaling. In all other situations, maintaining control over the business remains one of the key competitive advantages of a technology entrepreneur.
By Maxim Lyashch, entrepreneur in the field of AI and speech technologies, founder of two SaaS products