E17: Impossible to Bootstrap with Josh Perk
In this episode of The SaaS Operators Podcast, we dive into the tradeoffs of venture capital, bootstrapping, and the gray area in between. Josh Perk, Founder & CEO of Vector, joins the crew to talk about building a YC-backed company and why his $130K AWS bill makes bootstrapping impossible. The conversation covers how Vector is taking on giants like 6sense and Demandbase with contact-based marketing, why fundraising isn’t just about dilution but also about partner quality, and how capital markets are shifting as funds scramble to deploy earlier. We talk about secondary liquidity, founder motivations, and the real math behind VC outcomes, and when it makes sense to turn down the sure thing. The conversation wraps up on the messy reality of employee equity, acquisitions, and how founders navigate the tension between personal wealth, team outcomes, and long-term vision.
Joshua Perk, co-founder and CEO of Vector, joins us for one of the most interesting conversations we’ve had about company building, funding, and the strange state of capital markets.
Josh runs Vector, a Y Combinator-backed company taking on legacy ABM platforms like 6sense and Demandbase.
Their angle? Instead of vague “account-level” intent, they’re pushing contact-level intent, who, specifically, is researching your product, even if they’ve never touched your website. It’s what they call CVM: Contact-Based Marketing.
The challenge is that processing 10 billion rows of intent data every night isn’t cheap. Their AWS bill runs $130,000 a month. That’s not the kind of business you bootstrap on credit cards.
The Reluctant VC
What made the conversation interesting was Josh’s perspective on venture capital. He’s a self-described hacker who grew up skeptical of VC, “selling your soul to the devil” as he put it. But Vector needed capital. The company isn’t capital constrained in the go-to-market sense (they’re 99% inbound with just two sales reps). It’s capital constrained in compute. VC unlocked the product.
That said, Josh doesn’t buy the idea that raising round after round just for the sake of it is the only path. His mindset is simple: raise the least you need, keep optionality open, and head for profitability.
VC Math and Founder Outcomes
This turned into a broader discussion on VC math. VCs need funds to return at 100x+ outcomes. That’s why they push founders toward billion-dollar stories. If you only need $5 million to build something meaningful, you’re not actually helping them deploy their capital. Their math breaks.
For founders, the math looks different. A $300 million exit can sound huge but depending on dilution, preference stacks, and deal terms, the founder might not walk away with much. Compare that with bootstrapping or raising modestly: own 90% of a company, sell it for $30 million, and you personally walk away with $27 million. Less stress, fewer hoops, better alignment.
Of course, it depends on your motivation. Some founders want the S&P 500 legacy. Some want to maximize personal wealth. Others just want to build something sustainable and meaningful for their team.
The Morality of Exits
We also dove into the ongoing debates around “morality” in startup exits like the Windsurf deal where leadership was accused of looking out for themselves at the expense of employees. Josh, Rishabh, and Jeremiah all made the point that from the outside, nobody has the full context. Every outcome involves tradeoffs. Founders puke before layoffs. They agonize over distributing equity. They’re making decisions under pressure that employees rarely see.
Employees will always have feelings about outcomes, sometimes justified, sometimes not. But the reality is that everyone enters into these arrangements knowingly. Equity is sold as a lever, but it’s never a guarantee. And ultimately, every deal is a consensual transaction among the parties involved. Moralizing after the fact usually misses the nuance.
Secondary Liquidity
One theme we all agreed on: founders taking some secondary along the way is healthy. It de-risks them personally, gives them clearer thinking, and ultimately helps them stay the course. Done responsibly, it’s not a red flag, it’s good for the company.
Where Vector Goes from Here
Josh closed with a perspective that I liked: when he started, he thought $10 million would be a great exit. Today, he sees the potential for $100 million, or even a billion-dollar business, in B2B adtech. But he’s not promising a home run, just acknowledging the size of the ballpark he’s playing in.
That’s a healthy way to think about it. Build the best business you can. Raise what you need. Understand the math behind your investors’ incentives. And don’t let conventional wisdom push you into a path that isn’t yours.
