Build or Buy a SaaS: Bootstrap Growth Without VC

Most bootstrapped founders waste their scarcest resource—time—by insisting they must start from zero.

If you’re building a SaaS on nights and weekends (or even full-time, but without venture capital), the “build vs. buy” decision isn’t philosophical. It’s a practical trade: do you want to spend the next 12–24 months earning the right to start marketing… or start with something that already has momentum?

This post is part of the US Startup Marketing Without VC series, where we focus on what actually works when you don’t have a big budget, a huge team, or a runway measured in years. We’ll use insights from Rob Walling’s listener Q&A (Startups For the Rest of Us, Episode 650) as a jumping-off point—and then go further with frameworks, examples, and specific next steps you can apply this week.

Buying a SaaS is paying to skip the line

Buying a SaaS is the fastest way to “skip the line” on product-market fit discovery—if you buy the right thing.

Rob Walling’s take is blunt: buying can save you 12, 18, even 24 months of building, launching, and searching for traction. That’s not theoretical. It’s the lived experience of founders who bought businesses with existing users, SEO traffic, and revenue, then improved what was already working.

Here’s the stance I agree with: If you have money and you’re short on time, buying is often the more bootstrap-friendly move. It sounds counterintuitive because “bootstrap” gets confused with “start with $0.” But bootstrapping is really about control, efficiency, and sustainable growth—not about suffering.

What you should actually buy (hint: not a codebase)

A common early buyer mistake is thinking the asset is the software. It isn’t.

What you’re buying—what matters—is momentum:

• A customer base that already pays (even small)
• SEO traffic that reliably brings in leads
• Distribution (newsletter, community, partnerships)
• Proof of a real problem (support tickets, feature requests, renewals)

If all you get for $10k is “an app,” you didn’t buy a business. You bought a project.

“If you spend that 10 grand, you don’t just want to buy a codebase.” —Rob Walling

In the US Startup Marketing Without VC world, momentum is everything because it lowers your marketing cost. A small base of existing demand beats a beautiful product with zero demand every time.

The $10k SaaS vs. the $200k SaaS: a bootstrap risk framework

A listener asked whether it’s smarter to buy a tiny SaaS (a few hundred dollars MRR) for around $10k, versus stretching into the low six figures for something with more traction.

The right answer depends on what risk you’re trying to reduce.

Option A: The small acquisition ("cheap" but risky)

Buying a very small SaaS can work, but the risk profile is usually worse than it looks.

Typical issues at this level:

• Weak or nonexistent product-market fit
• Churn you can’t explain (because there isn’t enough history)
• Minimal tracking/analytics (you’re blind)
• The “business” depends on one channel that can disappear

If you’re doing this to learn, treat it like tuition. That can be fine. But don’t pretend you’re de-risking your startup journey.

Option B: The larger acquisition ("expensive" but often safer)

A larger acquisition can be safer because you’re buying evidence.

Evidence looks like:

• Months (or years) of retention data
• A stable acquisition channel (often SEO)
• Real customer conversations already embedded in the product
• Pricing that’s been market-tested

This is why Rob points to the idea of buying something in the $100k–$200k range that already has meaningful revenue (he referenced an app around $8k/month). You’re not paying for code. You’re paying for the time it took to get to that traction.

A simple decision rule

Use this rule if you’re marketing and growing without VC:

• Buy small if your primary goal is learning operations and you can afford to lose the money.
• Buy bigger if your primary goal is building a reliable growth engine and you have (or can assemble) capital.

And here’s the part many founders miss: capital doesn’t have to mean VC.

Funding an acquisition without VC (and not giving away your company)

If you want to buy a $200k SaaS, you don’t need venture capital—but you do need a structure that doesn’t punish you.

Rob makes a point that’s easy to gloss over but matters a lot: don’t raise money at a valuation equal to the purchase price, or you effectively sell the whole company.

Common non-VC paths founders use

• Seller financing: you pay part upfront, part over time from cash flow
• Revenue-based financing: pay back as a percentage of revenue
• A single operating partner/investor: one check, clearer alignment
• Small angel round (carefully structured): more like “accelerator terms” than “you own me terms”

If you’re trying to stay bootstrap-aligned, the goal is simple: keep control and ensure your time investment is rewarded.

One-line truth worth remembering:

Time is more valuable than money when you’re the bottleneck.

Day job constraints aren’t your enemy—random marketing is

Another listener asked the most common bootstrap question ever: “How do I get more customers when I’m working full-time?”

The trap is thinking you need “a marketing channel.” What you actually need is a marketing system that matches your time and cash constraints.

Rob’s useful framework is fast vs. slow marketing:

• Fast channels can produce customers this week.
• Slow channels compound over months.

If you’re bootstrapping with a day job, you usually need one of each.

Fast channels (good when you have time pressure)

Fast doesn’t mean “easy.” It means “short time-to-signal.”

Examples:

• Outbound prospecting (cold email, LinkedIn, partnerships)
• Paid acquisition (search ads, review sites)
• Marketplaces where buyers already exist

If you’re only doing outbound manually, your next step isn’t always “start content marketing.” Often it’s:

1. Systematize outbound (templates, list building, CRM)
2. Delegate the repetitive parts (lead list creation, enrichment, first-pass outreach)
3. Keep founder-led sales for closing and learning

This is how you keep momentum when your calendar is packed.

Slow channels (good when you want compounding growth)

Slow channels are where “US Startup Marketing Without VC” tends to shine, because they build durable advantages.

Examples:

• SEO content built around high-intent keywords
• Comparison pages (“X vs Y”) and alternatives pages
• Integration pages and programmatic landing pages
• Community and audience building (newsletter, webinars)

The catch: they take time.

So the real strategy is sequencing:

• Use fast channels to get to 10–20 customers and sharpen your message.
• Use what you learn to build slow channels that compound.

A practical 6-hour/week plan (for founders with a day job)

If you’ve got limited time, here’s a plan that doesn’t pretend you’re available 30 hours/week:

• 2 hours: outbound outreach + follow-ups (keep it consistent)
• 2 hours: improve conversion (homepage, demo flow, onboarding emails)
• 2 hours: one compounding asset per week (one SEO page, one case study, one integration page)

This matters because conversion improvements are the cheapest marketing you’ll ever do.

“Talk to users” still applies—even with a language barrier

The last listener question was a great edge case: what if your users can’t comfortably talk to you because of a language barrier?

The answer is straightforward: use an intermediary without guilt.

If your product serves non-native English speakers, forcing them into English interviews can distort your learning. You’ll get shorter answers, less emotion, fewer specifics—and you’ll misinterpret what matters.

Three workable options:

1. Hire an interpreter so you still lead the interview
2. Use a bilingual researcher to run structured customer interviews and summarize findings
3. Hire bilingual support/customer success early if interviews are ongoing

A small but important tactic: ask for feedback asynchronously too.

• Screen recordings with voice notes in the user’s native language
• Short surveys with open-ended responses
• “Show me how you used it” walkthrough requests

Bootstrapped marketing depends on message-market fit. And message-market fit depends on understanding what users actually mean.

A bootstrap-first checklist: build vs. buy vs. grow

If you want a quick decision tool, use this checklist.

Buy if...

• You have cash (or financing options) and low time availability
• You can evaluate traction (MRR, churn, traffic, funnel)
• You’re willing to operate and improve, not just “own”

Build if...

• You have a unique insight and can reach customers cheaply
• You’re okay with a longer path to reliable demand
• You can commit to consistent customer discovery

Either way, your first marketing job is the same

• Define your ICP in one sentence
• Pick one fast channel and one slow channel
• Track activation and retention before you “scale”

If your growth plan is “run ads” or “do SEO” without those basics, you’re paying to learn what you could’ve learned for free.

Where to go from here

Building vs. buying a SaaS isn’t about ego. It’s about throughput. If you’re serious about startup marketing without VC, you should be willing to do the unsexy thing that gets you to customers faster—whether that’s buying existing momentum or doing consistent outbound while your SEO ramps.

Pick the path that matches your constraints, then commit hard for 90 days. Bootstrapped success usually isn’t mysterious. It’s focused execution with tight feedback loops.

If you had to choose today: would you rather spend the next year building features, or spend the next year learning why customers buy?