A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Those higher costs make learning to write ads, manage campaigns, A/B test, and design landing pages a very expensive activity for an early stage, bootstrapping startup. On top of that, the cost has escalated tremendously over time. Each of those pieces merits its own book alone. Writing the ads is an extremely valuable skill set.

Campaign 272

Campaign Software Review Brazil Conversion 272

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 13, 2015

Suppose the goal of this particular company is to achieve $1m in annual revenue for a two-person bootstrapped startup, with a goal to be so efficient as to never have to hire employees, and therefore produce a terrific little business that nets each of them a few million dollars over the next ten years. Bigger markets make things easier.

Business Model 120

Business Model Affiliate Startup Bootstrapping 120

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 23, 2012

Note that some of those companies were bootstrapped, some bootstrapped and took money later, and some had huge funding from the start. It’s not about the financing path, it’s about what you’ve decided to build. It’s my goal to join the ranks of those excellent companies at WP Engine.

IPO 240

IPO Flash Bootstrapping Private Equity 240

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 27, 2010

I've been lecturing you about how to build honest, successful little bootstrapped startups for a few years now, and you've been patient, attentive, and in those spunky moments which I very much appreciate, vehemently argumentative. I'm going to whip out the dick, slap it on the table, and get out a ruler. Did I miss any other clichés?

Bootstrapping 232

Bootstrapping Hosting Reputation Restful 232

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

Since you’re bootstrapping, “cash now” is far more valuable than “cash later.” Set up an affiliate program and sell bloggers and consultants on how much money they can make. Offer an annual plan for a discount to increase immediate cash-flow.

Affiliate 261

Affiliate Revenue Bootstrapping Campaign 261

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. She’s successful by any measure. This is what physicists call a “time-asymmetry.”

San Jose 233

San Jose Bootstrapping Hosting Engineer 233

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Four years into Smart Bear I had several employees getting paid decently (which at a bootstrapped startup is hard to do!), What money, we’re still bootstrapping and I still don’t get a regular salary. It’s still there three years in, despite real revenue, profitability, customers arriving everyday, and a great team.

Bootstrapping 312

Bootstrapping Sales Texas Salary 312

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 10, 2010

To see this done right, consider Threadless , a bootstrapped marketplace matching people seeking unique T-shirts with people who invent them. If you're bootstrapping and your value proposition includes the words "anything" or "anyone," you're probably reaching too far. Solve the seller side first.

Business Model 310

Business Model Finder SEO Bootstrapping 310

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

Hard to know, but an important question for a bootstrap startup to answer! With WPEngine recently I had yet another question to answer: “What if I took $X/mo salary, then how much equity would you part with? What about $Y/mo?&# Here’s a simple framework for how to come up with those numbers.

Equity 276

Equity Salary Hiring Institutional Investors 276

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 19, 2012

My company is profitable, and has been from day one. – every high-tech bootstrapped founder I know what you really mean. mo for the S3 storage for web app uploads, plus $0.072/mo of S3 storage to back up the Pat Benatar mp3s.

Salary 246

Salary Bootstrapping Web Distribution 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 16, 2010

Let's get the self-aggrandizing plea for attention out of the way: Please vote for my SxSW panel entitled "A Bootstrapped Geek Sifts Through the Bullshit.". It answers questions like "How do I get the courage to just start when I know so little about what it's really like at a startup?"

Exit Strategy 246

Exit Strategy Angel Investor Finance Incubator 246

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 4, 2010

I feel myself transforming into the Dr. Laura of bootstrapped entrepreneurs.). Gee, is this therapy for me or for you ? Probably both. So over the next few months I'm going to run a few guest posts. Ground rules. I will still post every Monday, as usual.

RSS 139

RSS Viral HTML Social Media 139

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

If your idea is any good, you'll have competition from multiple players, both funded and bootstrapped, both smart and stupid, both large and small. To get you started, I've assembled a laundry list of questions common to many startups: Your biggest competitor just dropped their price to $0. How do you continue to justify your price point?

Bootstrapping 227

Bootstrapping Design Cost Customer 227

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 9, 2012

David Heinemeier Hansson doesn’t deserve to be alive either for instance — he makes millions of dollars at his bootstrapped, profitable, beloved business , he’s honored by geeks for creating Ruby on Rails , he’s a New York Times best-selling author and a race car driver, and all this with a 30-hour work-week.

New York 248

New York Ruby Social Media RSS 248

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 1, 2012

Why the obsession with raising money, what if you don’t want a huge company, what if you want to bootstrap, don’t you know raising money isn’t a measure of correctness or success, … I agree! Let’s focus on just one question: For which company would be easier to raise money? That’s shitty!

Customer 320

Customer Revenue Acquisition Cofounder 320

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 8, 2010

In fact, any bootstrapped company should be aiming for slow, consistent growth rather than explosive growth. We all have dreams of stratospheric growth, whether it's hoping the next blog post will get 267 votes on Hacker News and double your RSS subscribers , or hoping that the advent of release v1.1 will set the blogosphere ablaze.

Startup 252

Startup Email RSS Internet 252

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MARCH 11, 2014

And standing out to a company that got $10 million dollars in funding even before they started Asana is going to be very hard if you bootstrap it with your savings. I think another thing you wanted to talk about was the whole keep bootstrapping or raise money question. Jason: That’s called bootstrapping, right.

Technical Cofounder 220

Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 25, 2011

There was one especially large customer where we literally thought of it like this: This deal needs to be big enough to not only make a reasonable profit on the operating expenses, but pay for an entire developer’s salary (assuming bootstrapped, put-in-elbow-grease-for-stock low salary), because we know this new customer will occupy a lot of (..)

Java 311

Java Software Review Technical Review Salary 311

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

I bootstrapped it on my own. You’ve bootstrapped a company, so you can see all those things, and you’re skeptical of the VC side. It’s also at the same time a little confusing when you see the daily barrage of the next Me Too app for the last eight months that’s been produced in the same space. 99%, maybe 99.8%

Silicon Valley 204

Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 31, 2011

Today it would be near-impossible to bootstrap Smart Bear on those keywords. I bought ads for $0.05/click click and competed with no other advertisers. I spent only hundreds of dollars a month and covered the entire spectrum of SEM.

Customer 279

Customer Software Review SEM Technical Review 279

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

APRIL 3, 2012

The coincidence that Sacha Greif and I both launched our design eBooks ( Step By Step UI Design & Bootstrapping Design , respectively) on the same day presents a unique opportunity for a case study. Sacha just wrote about his pricing strategy last week on this blog, and shared that he earned $6,663 for 1,476 sales in 48 hours.

Sales 261

Sales Bootstrapping Design Audience 261

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JANUARY 11, 2010

Between the various things I’ve been doing and my own efforts I started noticing just how much time in this business goes into context work — all of the stuff besides the core of what your are building — and how hard it is, how much you have to sacrifice, especially if you are bootstrapping.

Entrepreneur 225

Entrepreneur Social Media Software Web 225

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

Take the success of ITWatchDogs , the company I helped bootstrap and eventually sell (before Smart Bear). Of course that's easy to see in retrospect , and retrospect is a terrible teacher , but the principle can work for any startup, especially when your goals are more modest than being the next Google.

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 21, 2011

The other is, ‘Don’t forget about bootstrapping.’ There are two essays in there, right? There’s the, ‘You don’t have to raise money,’ is one of them.

Widget 204

Widget Cofounder Technical Review Software Review 204

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

NOVEMBER 29, 2010

Bootstrapped companies have no such luxury. is still around at least, but wisely pivoted into matching celebrities (like Mandy Moore) with major brands (like NBC). They "survived.". Both of these companies have millions in funding, so they can afford to try new things or just flounder around.

Marketing 229

Marketing Ruby SEO Widget 229

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 27, 2011

There are plenty of folks who wouldn’t sell their company for a billion dollars; Jason Fried and Joel Spolsky are public examples from the bootstrapped startup world. There are plenty of folks who wouldn't sell their company for a billion dollars; Jason Fried and Joel Spolsky are public examples from the bootstrapped startup world.

Sales 235

Sales Term Sheet Stock Deal Structure 235

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

AUGUST 8, 2012

It’s just a bootstrapping way to get moving and get some momentum. This apartment is no longer available,” or “It’s not in the neighborhood that you’re looking for.” ” You know? Jason: I agree, 100 percent, but the screen scraping is just to start. Then you still have to get good data, I agree.

API 220

API Software Review Hosting Technical Review 220

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

MAY 14, 2013

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Your bootstrapped startup is finally off the ground. You’re able to spend $6000/mo on AdWords to drive leads. Sure the conversion rates could be better, and sure it’s not the best ROI on Earth, but on the balance it’s making money.

Affiliate 282

Affiliate Marketing Campaign Channel 282

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JUNE 20, 2011

I recently helped a friend broker the sale of his small, bootstrapped company. I recently helped a friend broker the sale of his small, bootstrapped company. Next week in Part 2 I’ll delve into the seller’s perspective, in which we’ll still find financials, while important, are trumped by simple human needs.

Sales 260

Sales Channel Cofounder Valuation 260

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Take this blog — it’s written specifically for founders of small, single-digit-sized startups, bootstrapped or angel-funded, who sell product online. You’ll be surprised how many people outside your target market wish that they were inside, and will join you if only to live vicariously.

Startup 284

Startup America Affiliate Bootstrapping 284