I am trying to compile a list of bootstrapped founders who have sold equity in their startup not to finance the company, but to simply pocket the cash.<p>One example here could be the founders of Basecamp, Jason & DHH, who sold a minority stake to Jeff Bezos back in the day to make sure they have something to show for in case the business failed.<p>There appear to be many founders of VC-backed startups who do this in later funding rounds, but I am trying to understand if this is also something in the world of bootstrappers as well.
Looks like Brian Halligan of Hubspot sold in each funding round [0] and the founders of Fiverr Micha Kaufman and Shai Wininger sold $600k of shares to BVP [1].<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/kb4822/comment/gfec2cx" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/comments/kb4822/comment/gfe...</a><p>[1]: <a href="https://www.bvp.com/memos/fiverr" rel="nofollow">https://www.bvp.com/memos/fiverr</a>
1Password recently did this with their $200MM Series A raise in 2019. Dave Teare talks about taking the majority of the money raised off the table when he spoke with DHH on an episode of the Rework podcast -<a href="https://www.rework.fm/venture-capital-and-control-with-david-teare/" rel="nofollow">https://www.rework.fm/venture-capital-and-control-with-david...</a>