In 2006, Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman published a paper called “Rich vs. King: The Entrepreneur's Dilemma.” The dilemma at hand was whether, as a founder, you would rather make money or retain control – which meant you couldn't have both.

Wasserman's reasoning was that if you want to get rich, you will need investors, at which point a loss of control becomes inevitable. If you'd rather be king, you'll have to fund your venture yourself, which means your potential for massive growth is nil.

“Entrepreneurs face a choice, at every turn, between making money and managing their ventures,” Wasserman writes. “Those who do not understand what is most important to them often end up neither rich nor powerful.”

With all due respect to Wasserman, this is simply not true. For proof, look no further than Spanx Sarah BlakelyGitHub's Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath and PJ Hyett, or Tough Mudder's Will Dean and Guy Livingstone, who are all the bootstrap founders who launched their companies to profitability without outside investment.

As a fellow founder myself, I believe there is a lot of misinformation and incorrect assumptions about what bootstrapping not just what it is, but the potential for what it could be.

Related: 3 essential skills I learned growing my business from the ground up

Why bootstrapping is still a best kept secret

Let's start with the basics: Bootstrapping refers to starting and running a company without outside investment, using whatever capital the founder has themselves, and whatever subsequent revenue the company generates.

The opposite of bootstrapping is raising capital through angel or VC investors. These operations tend to get a lot of press for several reasons: For one, eye-popping funding rounds are seen as major events, and there is a strong public perception that the company receiving large amounts of capital is poised to become a huge success. . (although this is far from always the case). Additionally, bootstrap founders are often more consumed with channeling their resources into building and developing their products than doing PR or media outreach.

Technology company Zoho, for example, it was done The first bootstrapped SaaS to surpass 100 million users. Answering one Reddit post on why bootstrapped companies like Zoho don't get much airtime, one commenter responded that the answer was simple: The street isn't that sexy.

“(Bootstrappers) aren't in startup meetings, they're not going into VC and they don't want their money.

Related: After running my own tech company for 25 years, here's what I've learned about funding

VC-backed growth versus bootstrapped growth

One of the biggest misconceptions about bootstrapped startups is that they are the same as small businesses, with the goal of staying small. That's not usually the case – it certainly wasn't the case for me. I grew Jotform from a side hustle I did alongside a full-time job into the enterprise it is today, with more than 25 million users worldwide and over 660 employees on five continents.

Bootstrapped startups are actually just as ambitious as those that get investment. While their growth may be slower and more incremental than if they received a massive infusion of VC money, they both share the same goal: Become a big, successful company.

VC-backed startups are often under pressure to grow quickly. That can — and does — work, especially if you're not okay with giving the CEO role to someone experienced in managing that kind of expansion. But if your goal is to stay and grow with your company, such rapid change can be very challenging.

With bootstrapping, your growth should be steady and continuous. I often think about it in the context of my two oldest children, now 6 and 8, when they started learning to play basketball. When they started training two years ago, they couldn't dribble the ball and their shots didn't land anywhere near the basket. But over time, they got better and better.

Related: What I wish I knew before starting my startup

I haven't taken my kids to practice in recent years because I want them to become professional basketball players (although no complaints if that happens). I accept them because learning to play has made them stronger, built their confidence and taught them discipline. But the fact is that improvement has taken time. The effect wouldn't be the same if they spent all day shooting hoops from dusk to dawn for a month straight – it's endurance that made them.

The same goes for bootstrapping. You can't make a product successful overnight by spending millions of dollars to hire hundreds of employees and buy thousands of ads. It takes time to build a good product, and it takes time to learn to be a good CEO. If you plan to be both rich and king, in Wasserman's parlance, getting the boot is the way to go.

There are still many misconceptions about bootstrapping, mainly because bootstrapping companies don't get as much press as those that go the VC route. But through continued growth, they can – and do – reach the same great heights, often in a more sustainable and long-term way.