Bootstrapping Your Business

Bootstrapping a business is starting a great business from scratch with no (or almost no) money. In reality, most business start off that way. There’s a good case to be made for bootstrapping your business as long as you can before accepting investment. In fact, it’s possible to launch a successful business and not ever take investment. Always consider the pros and cons of funding verses bootstrapping at each stage of your startup and choose what’s best for you. Here are some advantages of bootstrapping, followed by some resources on the subject. h3. Benefits of Bootstrapping:

• If your monthly burn-rate is very low, you don’t need much revenue to break even or even turn a profit!
• You may be able to make a very healthy business out of a niche that the big guys couldn’t be bothered with.
• At the start you’re not likely to know the right product, pitch, or revenue model – or even your market for that matter. It’s much easier to be fast and nimble as you hunt down your business model if you keep your company small and lean. Once you’ve identified your business model – then it’s much easier and sensible to grow. Nail it before your scale it!
• Bootstrapping forces you to stay focused on the real business of creating a product or service that people will pay for. If you have a lot of funding you can be running for months and years seeming very busy without actually identifying an viable revenue stream
• Bootstrapping requires you to be financially disciplined right away, a critical key to success throughout the life of your business.
• Bootstrapping fosters the kind of constant creative thinking that generates value. You have no choice! You have to figure out a way to get things done without money. If you have money to ‘burn’ you’ll become dependent on throwing money at every problem. Which only tends to hide it. Here are some excellent resources on Bootstrapping:
• Greg Gianforte may be the guru of bootstrapping, his book is excellent. “Bookstrapping Your Business”: http://www.spartina.com/items/7837-bootstrapping-your-business
• Required reading for bootstrappers from Seth Godin, Bootstrapper’s Bible
• An article on bootstrapping in Inc
• An interesting bootstrapping blog
• The most active bootstrapping group This article was submitted by Robin Krieglstein