The Bootstrapped Founder 416: The Ownership Paradox: What Do You Really Control in Your Software Business?
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Sep 26, 2025 Dive into the Ownership Paradox as a founder explores what they truly control in their software business. Discover how building on rented infrastructure can impact ownership and value. The episode discusses platform dependence and its effects on scalability and exit options. Hear about strategies for maintaining control over data and deploying fallback systems. Finally, learn key rules for navigating ownership, balancing lock-in with opportunity, and making intentional choices in your business journey.
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Value Grows As Control Shrinks
- Modern software businesses create valuable assets while depending on rented infrastructure.
- That creates a paradox where value grows but direct control shrinks.
Elixir Limited Buyer Pool
- Arvid built Feedback Panda in Elixir which limited potential buyers due to rare talent.
- The tech choice made the product harder to transfer despite owning the code.
Keep A Manual Deployment Fallback
- Maintain a manual deployment path so you can push fixes if CI/CD and hosts fail.
- Cache dependencies and keep ways to copy over old install data to recover quickly.