Independence & Sovereignty: Why We Don't Need Investors – or a Single Software Vendor

09 – Independence & Sovereignty

There's a sentence we say in every first meeting: "We recommend what works for you – not what earns us the highest commission."

That sounds obvious. It isn't. In the consulting world, two invisible forces distort every recommendation: investors and exclusive vendor partnerships.

We have neither. Deliberately.

No Investors Breathing Down Our Necks

Till Freitag is bootstrapped. No VC, no angel, no strategic investors. This means:

• No growth targets someone else defined
• No pressure to sell features nobody needs
• No exit strategy turning our clients into data points
• Full decision-making freedom – on every project, every partner, every client

When we decline a client because the project doesn't fit, nobody sends an angry email. When we recommend a free tool, nobody cuts our margin. When we say "you don't need that" – we mean it.

Why This Is Rare

Most agencies and consultancies run on investor capital or are part of larger holdings. That creates pressure:

• Revenue targets lead to upselling
• Investor KPIs lead to feature bloat
• Exit scenarios lead to short-term thinking

We grow organically. Slowly. Sustainably. That's not a bug – it's a feature.

Not a Single Software Vendor – Many Best Ones

The second part of our independence: We don't work exclusively with one vendor.

We're monday.com partners. And Lovable experts. And Claude power users. And Supabase fans. And Vercel deployers. And Cursor enthusiasts. And Retool users. And about 140 more.

Why? Because no single tool can do everything. And because exclusive partnerships lead to one of the worst consulting diseases: recommendations that fit the portfolio, not the problem.

The Synergy Effects of a Multi-Vendor Approach

When you work with the best from every field, something interesting happens:

1. You See Patterns Mono-Vendor Consultants Miss

If you only know monday.com, every problem looks like a board. If you only know Salesforce, every problem looks like an opportunity. We see the problem – then choose the tool.

2. You Can Advise Honestly

"Your CRM problem won't be solved by a new tool, but by a better process." – You can only say this when your revenue doesn't depend on tool licenses.

3. You Build Better Stacks

The best tech stacks are hybrid: Lovable for prototypes, Cursor for production, Kiro for specs. monday for project management, Attio for CRM. Supabase for the DB, Vercel for deployment. That only works if you know them all.

4. You Stay Technologically Relevant

If you commit to one vendor, you miss the next wave. We've analyzed 138+ vibe coding tools and identified 7 categories – not because we want to sell one, but because we need to understand all of them.

Sovereignty in Practice

On Projects

We start every project with the question: What do you need? – not "What can we do?"

If the answer is "a Notion board and a Google Sheet automation," that's the recommendation. Even if we earn less from it than from a custom app.

On Technology Decisions

We evaluate tools by fit, not by partnership:

• Client needs a CRM? → We compare monday CRM, Attio, HubSpot, Pipedrive
• Client needs a website? → We compare Lovable + Vercel, Webflow, Framer
• Client needs internal tools? → We compare monday Vibe, Retool, Softr, Glide

On Team Decisions

No investors also means: We hire who we want. Not who a board considers "scalable." Humanity over skills. Seniors only. Remote, because it works.

The Price of Independence

Of course, independence has a price:

• No venture capital means slower growth
• Multi-vendor means more learning effort
• No exclusive deals means smaller partner margins
• Bootstrapping means dry spells without a safety net

But the price of dependence is higher: lost credibility, distorted recommendations, and decisions made by someone else.

The Manifesto Behind the Manifesto

Independence isn't a single manifesto point. It's the prerequisite for all the others:

• Anti-McKinsey only works without an investor who wants McKinsey clients
• Build > Advise only works when you choose tools that fit the problem
• Senior-Only only works when nobody says "but juniors are cheaper"
• AI First = People First only works when you can evaluate AI tools objectively
• Scale Impact, Not Headcount only works without growth pressure
• Radical Autonomy only works when the team can make sovereign decisions
• Impact Beyond Business only works when nobody asks "but what does that do for the valuation?"

Independence isn't a luxury. It's the architecture that holds everything up.

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