In Gross’s words: “One day I was at Savon [pronounced Save-on] on Ventura Boulevard and saw they had a special on candy, three for a quarter. So I bought five dollars worth — at eight and a third cents each — and brought them back to my apartment, where I sold them for nine cents. I saved the kids a penny, and they didn’t have to hop the wall. Everyone began buying from me.”
Technorati tags: entrepreneurship
The Bootstrap Network: “The Bootstrap Network’s founding chapter was started in Austin, Texas on July 14, 2003. Bijoy Goswami invited a number of his fellow bootstrappers to meet at the Gingerman, a local pub. Since then, the Network has expanded and is now a global community of bootstrappers, organized by city and virtually connected.”
Technorati tags: bootstrapping, entrepreneurship
Gary Rivlin: “Rather than wait for eHarmony to go public, which might never happen, or for some bigger company to acquire it, which also might not happen, the company’s founders decided to look for venture capitalists willing to cash out some of the stake they and others held in the company.”
gregdb: “If a hobby business is run like a hobby — using your spare time — I suggest not to bother unless you are really patient or willing to put in extra time to make the business fly. Your customers deserve more.”
Technorati tags: entrepreneurship, startup, microbusiness, hobby
Sean Mountcastle: “The sold out Business for Geeks tutorial at OSCON was quite good. Marc Hedlund is an excellent teacher/speaker and the absence of Jason Fried from 37 Signals was hardly missed. Below are my notes from the session which will have to suffice until the slides are put online.” (via Brian Plexico)
Technorati tags: startup, bootstrapping, oscon
I’ve been involved in over 100 startups at this point and have seen many more. I can only remember a few instances where the company exceeded its revenue numbers in its first year of product ship. Many companies make their expense, EBITDA, and cash forecasts by adjusting spending, but that’s fundamentally different than making the top line and the bottom line numbers early in the life of the business (again – let’s focus on year 1 of product ship – not after the company has had several years of products in the market.) I’ve found that for year 1, the correlation between the sales plan and reality is completely random.
Take stuff from your last job
I don’t mean that you should steal office supplies but a good bootstrapper takes what they can from the resources that they have. The things you can take from your job ethically include your contacts and relationships, knowledge, and other things you can buy cheap. Employers have to get rid of things like that old laptop that you have been using. You can offer to buy back products you have been using from them at very low prices and they may be perfectly happy to do so.
Technorati tags: startup, bootstrapping
Jordan Rule: “Are you in, or out. Everyone who is should be prepared to work a minimum of 15 hours a week until the IPO. If something comes up, no big deal; it’s just acknowledging that you want a central role in the drive and decision making of the product as a manager. If you’re out, you can continue to contribute to any extent, but will not have virtual voting rights.”
Technorati tags: startup, software, bootstrapping, microbusiness
I have often said–regarding the successful operation of a micro-business–that if I can do it, anyone can do it. After all, I had no special training, no mentor, no real encouragement, and I don’t have a high-level of formal education. It seemed to me that if a guy like me could do it, then anyone should be able to do it.
But, I was wrong. “Anyone” cannot successfully operate a micro-business.
Technorati tags: microbusiness, entrepreneurship
Christopher Hawkins: “Laser-like focus is a must. As for how to get laser-like focus, well…all I can say is you better be doing work you really care about, or at least be doing work that has a payoff you feel passionate about.”
Alex Bendig: “Interesting though: His main points are really equally true, if you are working in a regular office.”
Technorati tags: home office
Ken Dyck 