Hunter Walker

JANUARY 15, 2017

I’ve spent most of my corporate career in online acquisition marketing and while the numbers always start out nice, there will always be a ceiling of how much profitable marketing one can do through the web. We don’t have a budget that has to be spent so I wanted to think outside of online acquisition. It is a hard, hard road.

Marketing 48

Marketing Design Acquisition Bootstrapping 48

Startup Lessons Learned

APRIL 14, 2009

Products can find sources of validation with impressive stats along a number of dimensions, such as high engagement, viral coefficient, or long-term retention. People talk about funding funding funding, bootstrapping, etc., Transitioning from founder sold bootstrapped revenue to a functioning sales team is certainly possible.

Customer 167

Customer San Francisco Lean Hockey Stick 167

Hippoland

OCTOBER 16, 2016

Do you have virality built into the product? In the beginning, this may not be a problem — you can bootstrap. But once you get to say a series A or B level and you have say 30 people on payroll, if you cannot raise, it’s really difficult to bootstrap a company of that size. I mean REALLY HARD.

Startup 48

Startup Vertical Early Stage Bootstrapping 48

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). You cannot use freemium strategies without this type of user experience (and freemium is the first fundamental change to the cost of customer acquisition).

Software 127

Software Startup Architecture Bootstrapping 127

View from Seed

MARCH 22, 2016

Offer reporters an exclusive on the successful, viral campaign that got you there, or a behind-the-scenes look at what your product does and how you’ll deliver on this huge campaign’s promises. Although bootstrapping your startup is difficult, that in and of itself is not unique. That is objectively crazy. You’re breaking taboos.

Seed Stage 120

Seed Stage San Francisco Startup CTO Hire 120

crowdSPRING Blog

MARCH 16, 2012

Competitive Differentiation that Matters – [link] 7 Rules for Bootstrapping a Business – [link]. Secrets of the acquisition process from EA and Zynga – [link]. 7 Rules for Bootstrapping a Business – [link]. Marketing the Viral Effect and Not-for-Profit Gold – [link]. – [link].

Social Media 94

Social Media Small Business Design Media 94

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

When you’re talking with an investor, I’d say in general, he/she has biases towards the customer acquisition methods that has made him/her money before. I know nothing about viral marketing. So you might think about how to best poise yourself to bootstrap and get to profitability for the next couple of years. Or in between?

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Hippoland

FEBRUARY 12, 2018

When you’re talking with an investor, I’d say in general, he/she has biases towards the customer acquisition methods that has made him/her money before. I know nothing about viral marketing. So you might think about how to best poise yourself to bootstrap and get to profitability for the next couple of years. Or in between?

Seed Stage 48

Seed Stage Business Model B2B Email 48

Software By Rob

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

Where they don’t belong is with a bootstrapped founder trying to figure out how many customers she can expect to reach next month on her shoestring marketing budget. Maybe we can’t rely on our freemium, advertising-based, viral revenue model, though. Oh wait, no…that’s right, it didn’t.

Marketing 64

Marketing Software Review Matching Bootstrapping 64