Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 22, 2018

Huge investments are also required to ramp up manufacturing, build a distribution network, and provide the support infrastructure. Niche or low growth-rate businesses opportunities. Others may indeed make good family businesses, but are usually deemed worth investment. Marginal legality or public image.

New York City 202

New York City Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Technical Review 202

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 6, 2016

If you really want to start a business your way without a boss or professional investor hovering over you, then just fund it yourself or through friends and family, and grow it organically. It’s more possible to bootstrap today than a few years ago, as the cost of entry continues to go down. Operate small, but show a big-company image.

Bootstrapping 120

Bootstrapping Hockey Stick Sweat Equity Intellectual Property 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 14, 2014

Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. Budding entrepreneurs and home-based businesses should be writing business plans before they start, so they understand and can manage the tasks ahead, but no outside investor need ever see the plan.

Startup 252

Startup eCommerce Hosting Bootstrapping 252

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 16, 2011

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. Yet, I find that startup founders often fixate on one or two sources, often to the detriment of their business. Friends and family. Angel investors. Venture capital.

Technical Review 233

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 233

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 18, 2011

Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. Budding entrepreneurs and home-based businesses should be writing business plans before they start, so they understand and can manage the tasks ahead, but no outside investor need ever see the plan.

Hosting 248

Hosting Bootstrapping .Net Social Network 248

Gust

APRIL 27, 2014

I’m continually amazed at the number of entrepreneurs who go for months into a new business without really keeping a formal record of money spent or assets acquired. Use a simple accounting tool like QuickBooks, get away from co-mingled funds, and you have the first business process you need. Develop your business plan.

Startup 187

Startup Institutional Investors Angel Investor Bootstrapping 187

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 25, 2023

To keep you out of this statistic, I recommend the following steps to all aspiring business owners as they step into this new and exciting world of managing your own business: Solidify your funding plan before you start spending. Do a written business plan to validate your thinking.

Intellectual Property 245

Intellectual Property Social Media Angel Investor Metrics 245

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 10, 2013

Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. Budding entrepreneurs and home-based businesses should be writing business plans before they start, so they understand and can manage the tasks ahead, but no outside investor need ever see the plan.

eCommerce 196

eCommerce Hosting Bootstrapping .Net 196

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 8, 2014

Huge investments are also required to ramp up manufacturing, build a distribution network, and provide the support infrastructure. Niche or low growth-rate businesses opportunities. Others may indeed make good family businesses, but are usually deemed worth investment. Marginal legality or public image.

New York City 254

New York City Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Technical Review 254

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

Working in a business, especially a startup , is all about predicting the future, and responding to unanticipated changes, or new entrants. Don’t be shy about networking for advisors with business experience for coaching and mentoring. Assess potential for funding or bootstrapping. You can’t keep all these in your head.

Silicon Valley 286

Silicon Valley Angel Investor LLC Incubator 286

Up and Running

JUNE 4, 2018

Presumably, you do actually want to complete and pass the courses you’re paying for, so it’s important to balance your time and ensure you don’t allow your business plans to eclipse your reason for being at university in the first place. It’s easier to bootstrap. You can leverage your student network. These include: 1.

Bootstrapping 66

Bootstrapping Colorado Internet Software Review 66

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 17, 2023

It never hurts to start networking personally with all levels of investors early, but sending out teasers and business plans to every name you can find on the Internet is a waste of your time and theirs. VCs normally come with the highest expectations of board seats, controlling votes, and milestones to meet.

Angel Investor 313

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 313

SoCal CTO

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Here are a few perspectives on it: Building a sweat equity team You simply need to network. I would caution any founder that finding and being successful with equity-only developers is tough. It can be done, but it’s hard. Go to user groups. Go to tech (or other relevant industry) events. Refine your elevator pitch.

Technical Cofounder 241

Technical Cofounder CTO Hire Equity Sweat Equity 241

Gust

JUNE 17, 2012

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. Yet, I find that startup founders often fixate on one or two sources, often to the detriment of their business. Friends and family. Angel investors. Venture capital.

Technical Review 164

Technical Review Bootstrapping Venture Capital Incubator 164

YoungUpstarts

MAY 6, 2019

According to Lee M Von Kraus, PHD and a mentor at Clarity.fm, “Early stage startups are usually pre-money startup that are bootstrapping the early development of a product.”. Business plan. What is your business going to be? Networking. You won’t make it big unless you have a network. Next is marketing.

Startup 113

Startup Technical Cofounder Merger Early Stage 113

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 16, 2010

Don’t expect that you can create a new social networking site in your garage, and steal all the users away from Facebook. Budding entrepreneurs and home-based businesses should be writing business plans before they start, so they understand and can manage the tasks ahead, but no outside investor need ever see the plan.

Cost 220

Cost Startup Hosting Bootstrapping 220

The Next Web

JULY 20, 2013

They speak about how they love to help entrepreneurs build successful companies, yet when I ask them to give me feedback on my business plan or idea, they usually don’t even bother writing me back. Prior to Credo, Andrej worked at an early growth fund Benson Oak, the first backer of AVG Technologies . VCs are arrogant. VCs are cowards.

Silicon Valley 124

Silicon Valley Mongolia Technical Cofounder Entrepreneur 124

Growthink Blog

JANUARY 3, 2012

Bootstrap as much as you can. Bootstrapping is the process of running your business with no outside financing. While you clearly can't accomplish as much as if you had outside funds, bootstrapping forces you to get creative and to figure out how to do more with less funds. Keep your eyes and ears open and network.

Bootstrapping 108

Bootstrapping Venture Capital Finance Business Plan 108

David Teten

JANUARY 21, 2021

Jonathan Bragdon , CEO, describes Capacity as “a team of founders-turned-funders making non-dilutive, founder-aligned investments of $50-$300k in post-startup, post-revenue businesses planning to 2X revenues in 12-24 months. This way of building the business we call ‘Value SaaS’ and the funding itself as optionality funding.

Equity 78

Equity Revenue Cofounder Colorado 78

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 9, 2016

Huge investments are also required to ramp up manufacturing, build a distribution network, and provide the support infrastructure. Niche or low growth-rate businesses opportunities. Others may indeed make good family businesses, but are usually deemed worth investment. Marginal legality or public image.

New York City 120

New York City Silicon Valley Startup Bootstrapping 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 12, 2021

For the rest of us, I’ve accumulated the following additional practical strategies for surviving the scale-up challenges, and making your business profitable and sustainable: Enlist an experienced advisor to project real costs. Build your plan around resources you know. Start networking for funding before the crisis.

Dilution 404

Dilution Incubator Bootstrapping Government 404

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 1, 2010

For example, with any outside investment, you give up some ownership and control, and with bootstrapping you growth curve will likely be longer and more organic. Yet, I find that startup founders often fixate on one or two sources, often to the detriment of their business. Friends and family. Angel investors. Venture capital.

Technical Review 149

Technical Review Bootstrapping Startup Venture Capital 149

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 22, 2020

It never hurts to start networking personally with all levels of investors early, but sending out teasers and business plans to every name you can find on the Internet is a waste of your time and theirs. VCs normally come with the highest expectations of board seats, controlling votes, and milestones to meet.

Angel Investor 370

Angel Investor Intellectual Property Investment Bankers Private Equity 370

Up and Running

NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Actually, banks don’t finance business startups. Banks aren’t supposed to invest depositors’ money in new businesses. Myth #3: Business plans sell investors. A well-written and convincing business plan (and pitch ) presents your business to investors in detail; but they are investing in your business, not just a plan.

SBA 161

SBA Venture Capital Angel Investor Technical Review 161

Up and Running

MAY 15, 2018

Write a business plan. It is not possible to chalk out how you are going to spend the money without having a business plan. In fact, most investors (and zero banks) will fund your venture without a complete business plan. Your business plan also needs to have a realistic financial forecast.

SBA 84

SBA Angel Investor Technical Review Startup 84

Up and Running

OCTOBER 1, 2014

What about bootstrapping? When you’re starting a business to build your own luck, you don’t often have a lot of start up capital. Plan ahead. Business planning has been a big factor for Theme Dragon since the beginning, and in any smart business, you want to know where you’re headed.

Bootstrapping 107

Bootstrapping Cofounder Portland Burn Rate 107

Duct Tape Marketing

APRIL 6, 2022

More About Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network: Learn more here. John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the salesman podcast, hosted by Will Barron and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. You know, could you look at my business plan? Like this show?

San Francisco 97

San Francisco Technical Review Incubator Silicon Valley 97

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Advertising was one of those extensions that we visioned in the first business plan for Bazaarvoice. Now at Bazaarvoice we have acquired Longboard Media, which in a way concludes our original vision in our first business plan. I greatly leveraged my eCommerce and broad Shop.org network to do so.

Bootstrapping 52

Bootstrapping IPO Business Model Software Review 52

crowdSPRING Blog

JANUARY 25, 2010

Three important factors that founders have to consider (no matter their location) are networks, funding, and talent. Here’s how we viewed each of these: Networking was critical to us. Nor was there a widely established network of Angels with a track record of supporting local companies.

Chicago 81

Chicago Silicon Valley Bootstrapping Entrepreneur 81

Up and Running

OCTOBER 21, 2014

Day 5: Start ‘business planning’ not the ‘business plan’. Coming from someone who works for a company that makes business planning software , that may sound odd. The truth is, you’re going to do the ‘official plan’ a bit later, in week 2 when it comes time to sort out where your funding is coming from.

Elevator Pitch 166

Elevator Pitch Software Review SBA Business Plan 166

Up and Running

JULY 1, 2015

No matter what your idea is, one of these options is likely to be a perfect fit for your new business’s cash needs. Bootstrapping. Personally funding your startup doesn’t have to mean using your own money to pay for the initial startup costs and development of your business. At the end of the day, every cent counts!

Bootstrapping 60

Bootstrapping Angel Investor Venture Capital Finder 60

A Smart Bear: Startups and Marketing for Geeks

OCTOBER 11, 2010

We're going to start with our own network and grow it from there.". WhenBusy is a bootstrapped startup that lets people schedule meetings with you in currently-available time-slots without you having to share your calendar [disclosure: I'm an advisor]. "We're better than everyone else at SEO.". "A We're going to get reviews on blogs.".

Software Review 261

Software Review Technical Review Viral Software Developers 261

Tim Keane

MARCH 9, 2011

How to prepare a sales forecast for a business plan » March 09, 2011. Can you bootstrap your way to positive cash flow?   If the answer is relatively soon, then bootstrapping is a very serious consideration.  In other words, the need for acceleration isn’t in conflict with bootstrapping – it is step two. 

Finance 83

Finance Bootstrapping Startup Equity 83

Professor VC

OCTOBER 11, 2010

Is There Any Truth in "The Social Network"? Got around to seeing The Social Network this past weekend. I did a little searching around the web to try and find a truth vs. fiction comparison, but the closest I found was "The 10 Most Glaring Lies In The Social Network" on the Business Insider. Bootstrapping 101.

Social Network 28

Social Network Networking Software Review San Jose 28

The Next Web

DECEMBER 30, 2012

We’ve built (and continue to grow) a network of journalists and a corresponding publisher network. When our users do business with each other, we take a fee as facilitator. We determined that we could best monetize the business by focusing on online marketing, particularly our pay-per-click services.

Business Model 133

Business Model Technical Review Advertising B2C 133

Tim Keane

APRIL 20, 2009

Bootstrap your venture. At last week's Business Plan Competition at Marquette University , the keynote speaker, Greg Gianforte, CEO of Right Now , talked passionately about the keys to bootstrapping businesses.  It seems to me that bootstrapping is an overlooked technique, and it should not be. 

Bootstrapping 60

Bootstrapping Wisconsin Angel Investor IPO 60

ReadWriteStart

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

Through them, entrepreneurs can hook up with R&D resources in universities and companies, and get access to a robust support network that provides opportunities for visibility, growth and financing. OSEO can be involved during very early stage activities, such as business plan creation and feasibility studies.

France 163

France Technical Review Incubator Early Stage 163