A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
APRIL 11, 2017
I started Smart Bear in a recession (2002) and it went great. When the economy is good and the product fits the market, sales are easy. If you choose a market that’s already large and growing (as we did), there are big opportunities with many niches. The answer is always yes. But it’s the wrong question.
Steve Blank
AUGUST 8, 2016
Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with his father in the family basement. But in the corporate world in 2002, no one was ready for it. So we started in the academic market — because they would actually buy. Still, academics made up Qualtrics’ core market for five years. We bootstrapped it.
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Steve Blank
AUGUST 8, 2016
Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with his father in the family basement. But in the corporate world in 2002, no one was ready for it. So we started in the academic market — because they would actually buy. Still, academics made up Qualtrics’ core market for five years. We bootstrapped it.
A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks
MARCH 20, 2012
Erica Douglass bootstrapped her company and sold it for a million dollars while her friends were switching majors for the third time or dicking around at some entry-level job. To see why, let’s wind the clock back to 2002 when Erica started her hosting company, Simpli. She’s successful by any measure. circa 2008.)
Startup Lessons Learned
MAY 14, 2009
Take a look: This full-day Master Class focuses on how to build a startup from the ground up to focus on customers, markets, and speed of iteration. I closed down my first business last November and I am bootstrapping the second one currently. We attempted to use Waterfall and market ourselves as B2C. Cash is tight.
ReadWriteStart
NOVEMBER 16, 2010
The big enterprise software companies almost all bootstrapped their way to profitability before they got their first external investors (typically via an IPO). But this discipline also means that the product fit to market tends to be very good - you don't end up with solutions looking for problems. Photo by LotusHead.
Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli
MAY 16, 2010
The time gap between the moment I have an idea and the moment I can confront it to market validation via some prototypes has too be as short as possible so I am always looking for better ways of doing things. I’m still a.NET dev by day but I’m bootstrapping a startup on Rails in my free time.
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