Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 10, 2013

This costs nothing, and allows you to safely collect money from customers all around the world. Customize your website using one of the tools above, selecting one of the standard templates for design and layout. The next step in complexity is building a software product that you can offer as a service to your customers.

eCommerce 196

eCommerce Hosting Bootstrapping .Net 196

SoCal CTO

MAY 21, 2012

Many of the factors are not obvious and include building mystery to drive margin, why boring B2B companies often win but are challenging in other ways, how bootstrapping wins, integrating metrics from the start and many other similar lessons. What is our lifetime customer value and how can we drive that up?

Fractional CTO 175

Fractional CTO CTO Hire Startup Social Network 175

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 11, 2011

Yet the smart entrepreneur can still bootstrap the technical team, using one or all of the following evaluation and hiring approaches: Hire an expert consultant for initial interviews and recommendation. It is just really hard to found a technology company successfully with only one founder, technical or non-technical.

Technical Review 236

Technical Review Partner Entrepreneur Dilution 236

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 16, 2011

Freshdesk First, Girish Mathrubootham from Chennai, India, pitched Freshdesk , a SaaS company that provides small and medium businesses with on-demand customer support software that offers multi-channel social support. Freshdesk introduces itself as a kind of Salesforce.com for customer support so to speak.

India 123

India Bootstrapping Non-Compete Entrepreneur 123

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

This costs nothing, and allows you to safely collect money from customers all around the world. Customize your website using one of the tools above, selecting one of the standard templates for design and layout. The next step in complexity is building a software product that you can offer as a service to your customers.

Cost 220

Cost Startup Hosting Bootstrapping 220

Duct Tape Marketing

AUGUST 23, 2023

He is the co-founder of Boast.ai, where he leveraged the Community-Led Growth model to bootstrap the company. He is also the co-founder of Traction, a community empowering over 100k innovators through connections, content, and capital. He is the co-founder of Boast.ai Then another time was when we were bootstrapping both.

Community 54

Community Kuwait Cofounder Bootstrapping 54

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 19, 2010

No wait, I forgot, actually the question is: What happens when employee #2 makes off with your code and roadmap and marketing data and customer list, moves to Bolivia, and starts selling your stuff world-wide at one-tenth the price? But now she has the vision and ability to design her own software, capitalizing on modern trends (e.g.

Software Review 325

Software Review Technical Review Development Team Review Bolivia 325

www.readwriteweb.com

OCTOBER 7, 2007

This is typically called “bootstrapping&# and it is fraught with potential pitfalls and dangers. But when done well it can really help get a company going fast, professionally and without the founders having to give up much (if any) equity - or bankrupting themselves. What is bootstrapping? Why bootstrap?

Bootstrapping 41

Bootstrapping Offshore Startup EC2 41

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 16, 2012

Competitive Differentiation that Matters – [link] 7 Rules for Bootstrapping a Business – [link]. Repeat after me: business is always about the customer – [link]. Repeat after me: business is always about the customer – [link]. 7 Rules for Bootstrapping a Business – [link]. Name dropping!

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 7, 2011

Sometime around 2003/04 my technology team turned me on to “Spolsky on Software&# a periodic newsletter served up blog style from Joel Spolsky of FogCreek Software, a maker of bug-tracking software. Blogs weren’t popularized yet so it was an oddity for me to read the founder of a software company spewing out advice.

Software Review 285

Software Review Software St. Louis API 285

Startup Lessons Learned

MARCH 16, 2009

Lessons Learned by Eric Ries Monday, March 16, 2009 Combining agile development with customer development Today I read an excellent blog post that I just had to share. In most agile development systems, there is a notion of the "product backlog" a prioritized list of what software is most valuable to be developed next.

Agile 111

Agile Customer Development Developer San Francisco 111

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 25, 2014

The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. Salaries Startup Founders Pay Themselves | Business Insider – crowdspring.co/1nHU2OK. The Ultimate List of Customer Development Questions – crowdspring.co/1nHT6tS. A 3-Day Weekend…Every Weekend? 1ijEY9t.

Social Media 92

Social Media Small Business Design Media 92

crowdSPRING Blog

DECEMBER 7, 2012

7 Crucial Lessons from an Embarrassing Customer Service Trainwreck | Help Scout - [link]. Seth’s Blog: The cycle of customers who care - [link]. Attention founders: Here’s how you respond to an unfair post about your company - [link]. Questions to Ask Potential Cofounders: The Master List | Founder Dating - [link].

Social Media 104

Social Media Small Business Design Media 104

Gust

JUNE 19, 2012

Tim Berry , Founder, Palo Alto Software. For example, with any outside investment, you give up some ownership and control, and with bootstrapping your growth curve will likely be longer and more organic. Martin Zwilling , Founder and CEO, Startup Professionals. Tim Berry , Founder, Palo Alto Software.

Startup 180

Startup Forecast Angel Investor Software 180

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 11, 2014

While struggling to build companies, some founders also quietly battle depression | BetaBoston – crowdspring.co/1mUNP1y. “38% of venture-backed founders are over 40 years old” - crowdspring.co/1hywYgv. How Old Are Silicon Valley’s Top Founders? How to Make Better Reference Calls - crowdspring.co/1e9bls4.

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 14, 2017

He is the founder and CEO of Stackify. He’s been a developer/hacker for over 15 years, and he sold his first startup, VinSolutions for $150 million. In the past, as a developer, I’d rather just hide in the closet somewhere and write code. As a founder of a company, a CEO of a company. Go check it out.

Kansas City 40

Kansas City CTO Hire Las Vegas Software Developers 40

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 18, 2011

Andrew Ellis, one of the co-founders of SignNow.com, was so enthusiastic about his company, I’m going to let him do most the talking on this one: How would you explain what you do to somebody’s grandmother? One example is outsourcing our original software development and it eventually had to be redone.

Small Business 105

Small Business New Jersey Internet Bootstrapping 105

crowdSPRING Blog

FEBRUARY 7, 2014

21 Reasons To Bootstrap Your Startup | ZoomShift – crowdspring.co/M5SXUd. The Founders Guide to Surviving Startup Life – crowdspring.co/1eYfYis. Startup founder salaries: Younger, more inexperienced entrepreneurs pay themselves less | The Next Web – crowdspring.co/1f87xE1. 1gBDzfA. .

Social Media 95

Social Media Small Business Design Media 95

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

The subject of measuring market size comes up every few weeks in my interactions with startup founders, and one point I always raise is the difference between a top-down and bottom-up approach. Bottom-Up There are many bottom-up approaches to sizing a market; I discuss the approach I use in my developer’s guide to launching a startup.

Marketing 64

Marketing Software Review Matching Bootstrapping 64

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 4, 2013

Don’t Accidentally Bootstrap Yourself to Death | saastr – [link]. 10 Lessons I’ve Learned During My First Three Months As a Founder (by @lenkendall) | @Technori – [link]. Legal Contracts for Software Developers Who Hate Contracts (w/free contract template to use today) – [link]. Quora – [link].

Social Media 100

Social Media Small Business Design Media 100

www.singlefounder.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Company founders don’t have the luxury of ‘diversifying their portfolio,’ so to speak. They work at their company until funding is pulled, it goes bust, it’s sold, etc… It’s hard to be the founder at multiple companies at the same time. Myth #3: I need a partner. Agree with all of them.

Software Review 40

Software Review Software Startup Massachusetts 40

Software By Rob

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

I was surprised by this, as I thought Seth was going to discuss another option I’ve seen used with great success: customer financing. That’s when you find one or more (future) customers that help fund your product development in exchange for input into the process and free or highly discounted use of the software.

Equity 42

Equity Software Review RSS Widget 42

Startup Lessons Learned

FEBRUARY 9, 2009

The Lean Startup is a practical approach for creating and managing a new breed of company that excels in low-cost experimentation, rapid iteration, and true customer insight. It uses principles of agile software development, open source and web 2.0, The trade-off, though, is a more structured presentation format.

Lean 68

Lean San Francisco Web Advisory Board 68

thenetsetter.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Even less-obvious founders like the internet media personality and Digg founder Kevin Rose actually began in computer science. In the cases of all the founders I just mentioned the answer was yes. This is better than hiring for a number of reasons: Hiring a good developer is not cheap.

Web 40

Web Technical Review Developer Cofounder 40

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Also important: Only go for providers who have great reviews from many past customers. Weve built Sandcastle specifically for an entrepreneur with an idea, who is not a developer. Sandcastle is a software development service for entrepreneurs. Or if prototype is good enough to sell, sell it to customers.

CTO Hire 84

CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84