Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

When someone asks me for the best way to fund a startup, I always say bootstrap it, meaning fund it yourself and grow organically. Bootstrapping avoids all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding angels or VCs, and allows you to keep control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. Hire experts, not help.

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Bootstrapping Merger Salary .Net 240

ReadWriteStart

JUNE 29, 2020

People are trapped at home, they are not getting a salary, and they are afraid to touch another person because no one knows who is and isn’t infected with the virus. In other words, you must start bootstrapping an online startup , because the future of the global business world is online. Ways to bootstrap a startup.

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Bootstrapping Global Startup Hungary 85

Up and Running

AUGUST 11, 2015

How ironic that it seems like more than 90 percent of the online information on startups is about getting financed—but more than 90 percent of startups are bootstrapped. What does bootstrapping mean? ” See Also Should I Borrow Money, Seek Investment, or Bootstrap My Business? .” How many startups are bootstrapped?

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Bootstrapping Startup Angel Investor Small Business Administration 60

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 23, 2013

When someone asks me for the best way to fund a startup, I always say bootstrap it, meaning fund it yourself and grow organically. Bootstrapping avoids all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding angels or VCs, and allows you to keep control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. Hire experts, not help.

Equity 241

Equity Bootstrapping Startup Merger 241

YoungUpstarts

MARCH 13, 2018

For many, “bootstrapping” involves lots of ramen noodle dinners, working weekends, and foregone hobbies. If you’re self-confident enough to sell them on your vision, and said vision is actually worth selling, their largess may be all you need to get from whiteboarding to revenue. Live by the mantra: be slow to hire and quick to fire.

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Balance Sheet Bootstrapping Dividend Entrepreneur 113

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 9, 2015

Bootstrapping not only reduces cash needs, but increases commitment. The need to hire staff immediately. Creative and determined entrepreneurs always find ways to get people to work for equity, barter services or share later revenue rather than pay cash up front.

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David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

This essay is part of a series on alternative VC: I: Revenue-Based Investing: a new option for founders who care about control. II: Who are the major Revenue-Based Investing VCs? III: Why are Revenue-Based VCs investing in so many women and underrepresented founders? IV: Should your new VC fund use Revenue-Based Investing?

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Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

The question is further complicated when the new hire is getting a salary. Typically the salary is less than market with the balance given in the form of equity, but again how do you compute that when the stock is, today, of no value? Here’s a simple framework for how to come up with those numbers.

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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. The first and biggest error is thinking you can ignore your own salary. When your business throws off $1500/mo (without salaries), that’s not the case.

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Salary Bootstrapping Web Distribution 246

The Entrepreneurial Mind

AUGUST 16, 2011

Bootstrapping is the name of the game for most startups. A bootstrapped startup also allows the entrepreneur to determine what the market really wants without having to lock in specific long-term expenses tied to a specific business model. In the bootstrap world you fight to survive. You watch every dollar very closely.

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Bootstrapping Cofounder Salary Business Model 72

K9 Ventures

SEPTEMBER 24, 2009

couldn’t draw a salary). The latter was fine by me since there was no money in the company for me to draw a salary any way. I was bootstrapping the company and started with $5,000 that I had saved up from a prior summer internship. I hired my TA as my first employee and paid him $12.50 I formed SneakerLabs, Inc.

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United States Founder India Venture Capital 114

Bryce Dot VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2016

4 of them have double their revenue or, in a few cases, significantly more than doubled revenue, since we kicked off the program 9 months ago. When we were asked early one how we would measure whether we were on to something our answer was getting half of the companies to market salary profitable.

Los Angeles 40

Los Angeles LP Bootstrapping Revenue 40

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

For this article, we asked 14 SaaS CEOs a simple question: “How much did you spend on your MVP before you had your first dollar of revenue?”. The MVP took around four months to build, during which time the company earned no revenue. is a SaaS tool that companies can use to assess engineers before they hire them. Image source).

Sweat Equity 78

Sweat Equity Software Review Vesting Cofounder 78

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

To replace them, employers spend $11,500 average per healthcare employee acquisition cost (20% of the annualized salary plus hiring incentives is considered customary for acquisition cost). There is no available simple or inexpensive way for employer and employee to find each other except through Monster-type services.

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www.mint.com

MARCH 9, 2010

If the answer to the question centers around “We will achieve revenue soon so our net will improve and give us more runway,” it means the company is in trouble because no product ever ships on time nor achieves the company’s “conservative forecast.” These days revenue is the best source of capital. Who is on your board of directors?

Software Review 68

Software Review Startup Post-Money Valuation Technical Review 68

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 6, 2019

For this article, we asked 14 SaaS CEOs a simple question: “How much did you spend on your MVP before you had your first dollar of revenue?”. The MVP took around four months to build, during which time the company earned no revenue. is a SaaS tool that companies can use to assess engineers before they hire them. Image source).

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Sweat Equity Software Review Vesting Cofounder 50

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 13, 2020

Even if you are bootstrapping the business, and not looking for outside investors, the “rules of thumb” that smart investors look for should be the same ones that you use to assess your own risks and set reasonable expectations for progress and success. > Market penetration and revenue targets related to opportunity size.

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Liquidity Event Forecast Exit Strategy Bootstrapping 308

Up and Running

MAY 28, 2015

There’s a lot of questions about what do you actually need in terms of information, if you’re going to do your forecasting, and how does one put together a revenue forecast if you’ve never started a business or your business is brand new. When do we hire that new person? It is a very difficult proposition.

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Lean Business Plan Video Software Review 60

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.

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Technical Cofounder Cofounder Software Review Management 220

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 1, 2011

Who says a bootstrapped startup can’t succeed? Here are 10 bootstrapped companies that did it on their own with no outside funding. Looking back on their previous experiences working at startup companies, the founders decided to bootstrap their business in lieu of seeking outside funding. Startup #1: Goldstar. How’d they do it?

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Bootstrapping Startup Cofounder Salary 78

Hearpreneur

JUNE 14, 2017

I hired another guide to help with the load, and I started charging for tickets to pay the guide. We’ve continued bootstrapping since then — today we are a $2.5 I hire the best, so we’re all able to have it all. The revenue on the darkroom rental was close to what I was making weekly, I was in disbelief.

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Entrepreneur South Africa PR Thailand 128

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

JULY 24, 2012

I bootstrapped it on my own. In fact, we were cash flow positive, including everyone’s salaries and everything in seven months. Then we hired two people and got profitable again in another six months. You’ve bootstrapped a company, so you can see all those things, and you’re skeptical of the VC side.

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Silicon Valley Software Review Internet Technical Review 204

YoungUpstarts

SEPTEMBER 21, 2012

By being a part of the conversation, you just might catch the attention of a startup that’s hiring. Successful startup hires have created infographics, catchy slideshows, even interesting websites to stand out in the crowd. It’s a bold move, one that got him noticed, and hired, by the startup. Get along with the founders?

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techcrunch.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. In later posts I’m going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like. In my neck of the woods programmers are hired guns at first year in college.

Technical Review 84

Technical Review Cofounder Technical Cofounder Software Review 84

www.singlefounder.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

Go ahead and laugh, but over 95% of Moon River Software’s revenue this year has been from consulting services. The software I sell has made up less than 5% of total revenue in the past 12 months. Let’s turn the tables and think about an off the wall question: Do you even need a product? However, it could be more complete.

Software Review 40

Software Review Software Startup Massachusetts 40

online.wsj.com

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

If failure is defined as failing to see the projected return on investment—say, a specific revenue growth rate or date to break even on cash flow—then more than 95% of start-ups fail, based on Mr. Ghoshs research. Meanwhile, an Egypt-based, al Qaeda-inspired group claimed responsibility for Fridays attack along the border.

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Venture Capital Software Review Rhode Island North Dakota 107

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. Deal A gets you your number, but your employees get a small signing bonus and no salary raises; they’ll resent you for not taking care of them. Alternatives.

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Sales Term Sheet Stock Deal Structure 235

YoungUpstarts

JANUARY 26, 2016

When you consider that 88% of people leave their jobs for a position with a matching or lower salary you come to understand that the reasons for changing companies is rarely financial. Despite being a bootstrapped company with little revenue, we over-invested in a central New York City office at a rate of 15% rent to revenue.

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Software Review New York City Salary Employee 100

sivers.org

JUNE 25, 2010

Derek Sivers about me blog books email list contact How to hire a programmer to make your ideas happen 2010-06-19 Do you have an idea for a website, online business, or application, but need a programmer to turn that idea into reality? Say, “We are hiring a developer to create only the beginning of an application. Hire one from each.

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CTO Hire Hiring Software Review Technical Review 84