How ModeOne’s Funding Strategy Drives Lasting Value
Building a company requires many difficult decisions, but one of the earliest and most impactful is deciding how to fund your growth. Our founders chose to invest their own time, money, and resources to bootstrap the project from the ground up. While venture capital (VC) has become a widely celebrated path for startups, ModeOne chose a path that combined angel investment with self-funding to spark our full-time launch into the market. This funding strategy has fueled ModeOne, allowing our team to focus on delivering the strongest product in the market and cultivating critical relationships with clients.
Venture Capital Vs. Bootstrapping
It’s no secret that VC funding can accelerate growth. For companies needing significant upfront capital—perhaps to enter a competitive market quickly or bridge a long path to profitability—VC can provide essential resources. However, it also comes with expectations and timelines.
In a typical capital venture, investors expect returns within a specific time frame. To prove they’re on the right path, startups often prioritize investor metrics and preferences over the needs of customers and employees. Over time, founders can gradually lose sight of their core philosophies, adjusting focus to satisfy investors––shifts which can negatively impact critical early-stage engineering, product, marketing, and culture-related projects.
On the other hand, bootstrapping means building a company using your own savings, time, and revenue generated by the business. While it is challenging (more on that below), self-funding provides critical autonomy, control, and flexibility to the business. Companies that bootstrap operate on their own timelines, make customer-first decisions, and focus on sustainable, steady growth. At ModeOne, this approach gave us the freedom to double down on what mattered most: developing a high-quality product that truly solves a problem for our customers.
How Bootstrapping Shaped the ModeOne You Know Today
Without outside investors dictating priorities, ModeOne has been able to make decisions that align with our vision and values. Rather than chasing short-term profits or unknown growth targets, this autonomy has allowed us to:
- Prioritize product development and customer feedback.
- Invest in areas that matter to our team and customers.
- Move at a deliberate, tactical pace that assures the highest quality in everything we do.
- Pivot and adapt without the pressure of meeting investor-imposed KPIs.
The Product Advantage: Building Real Value
Rather than burning early funds on excessive marketing or premature scaling, we spent time listening to our clients, refining our framework, and proofing out why we are the leaders in smartphone discovery.
For example, many of our initial customers expressed the need for more precise technology to retrieve specific text conversations––one that protects custodian privacy while streamlining data collection. Thanks to our early autonomy, we were able to quickly build out Participant Filtering, a groundbreaking smartphone data discovery capability and the first of its kind on the market, to deliver on this customer need.
This approach has not only strengthened our product but also built trust with our early adopters, positioning us at the forefront of mobile data collection. Today, ModeOne remains the only truly remote solution for same-day targeted data collection from Apple iOS and Android mobile devices for evidentiary, compliance, and investigative needs.
The Company Advantage: Pivoting and Adapting
Mobile phones and their operating systems are constantly evolving. One of the biggest benefits we’ve experienced as a bootstrapped company is the ability to freely pivot and adapt to changes in our market to meet evolving customer needs (and stay competitive).
This flexibility allows us to focus resources strategically. For ModeOne, that means monitoring Apple and Google’s roadmaps to anticipate changes and provide immediate support for new phones and operating systems. Essentially, this agile approach empowers us not only to create a quality data collection product but also to deliver a powerful, proactive risk management solution for our legal and compliance-focused clients.
For example, this played out with Apple’s release of iOS 18 and the iPhone 16 for which we were able to implement day zero support with no down times––earning recognition from top industry publications as “ahead of the curve.”
The Culture Advantage: Cohesion and Ownership
Beyond product development, bootstrapping has also shaped ModeOne’s team culture for the better. Hiring has been thoughtful and strategic, ensuring that every team member plays a critical role in the company’s success; there’s no room for bloat or inefficiency. Instead, we operate as a close-knit team where everyone is engaged, invested, and directly contributing to our goals.
At various points in our journey, this distinctive all-hands-on-deck culture has functioned as a positive feedback mechanism for the organization, boosting our product initiatives, strengthening client relationships, and driving other critical activity.
Just after launch, for instance, we took on a major Relativity Short Message Format (RSMF) project for our largest client at the time. A project of this size would typically take one to two months. However, through company-wide collaboration–from executives and account managers to product specialists and developers––and a shared sense of urgency, we were able to deliver results in just two weeks.
Bootstrapping has given us that classic underdog mentality—a hunger to prove ourselves, innovate relentlessly, and deliver exceptional results.
Overcoming Obstacles and Establishing Credibility
That underdog mentality has also come in handy in the face of common challenges associated specifically with bootstrapping. Without the networks, mentorship, and credibility that often come with VC and angel backing, we’ve had to approach growth differently:
- Building Credibility: Early on, customer relationships were critical for establishing trust. By consistently delivering on our promises, we earned credibility that no amount of VC funding could buy.
- Access to Networks: VC-backed companies often benefit from an investor’s network for partnerships, hires, and visibility. ModeOne has had to build these networks organically, through strategic relationships and hard work.
- Balancing Cash Flow: Bootstrapping requires careful financial management. Predicting cash flow and balancing hiring with growth has been an ongoing discipline.
Despite these hurdles, the challenges of bootstrapping have strengthened us. They forced us to be resourceful, customer-focused, and disciplined—qualities that continue to drive ModeOne forward.
Looking Ahead: A Bootstrapped Foundation, An Open Future
The journey to building ModeOne has been intentional and rewarding. By bootstrapping through self-funding and small angel investments, we’ve been able to deliver a product, company, and culture that we’re incredibly proud of. It’s this foundation that has made ModeOne resilient, agile, and customer-first.
Looking ahead, we remain committed to thoughtful, sustainable growth. While bootstrapping has served us well, we recognize that success can sometimes require additional resources. If institutional funding becomes part of our future, it will be a deliberate choice, guided by partners who share our values and vision. For us, funding will never be about shortcuts—it will be about adding value and amplifying what we’ve already built.
To entrepreneurs navigating their own funding decisions: know that bootstrapping isn’t just an option, it’s a powerful strategy. It can empower you to stay true to your vision, focus on your customers, and create something truly meaningful. At ModeOne, we’re proof that you don’t need VC funding to build a company that’s innovative, impactful, and built to last.