One of the biggest ways the public hears about a new and exciting startup is when that company raises a lot of dough from venture capital firms or from a splashy crowdfunding campaign.

But do you know that Bootstrapped startups have a long history in the U.S., with many of the biggest enormous businesses in the world starting just from one good idea and no initial funding, without taking any venture capital or crowdfunding dollars?

Mailchimp

In the realm of email newsletters, Atlanta-based Mailchimp is a giant. There’s a good chance you receive emails from Mailchimp in your inbox every day but don’t know it. But this massive company with nearly $700 million in annual revenue started from a bootstrapped dream. Co-founders Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius started the company in 2000 after being laid off from web design jobs. It took until 2007 for them to focus exclusively on MailChimp, but that focus has paid off as it is one of the biggest companies in its space. The company was named Inc.’s Company of the Year in 2017 and today it is still 100% founder-owned.

Source : uschamber