Dr. Jeff Cornwall from the Entrepreneurial Mind blog posted a series on creating and maintaining a bootstrapping culture in your business. This is a topic that is near and dear to the bigWebApps' heart.
It just so happened that I learned bootstrapping at an early age and from an unlikely source. I attended a small private school through the 8th grade. Small and private, contrary to initial thoughts, usually means very low budgets. And our track team was the epitome of a bootstrapping culture.
I ran hurdles... otherwise know as "hurdle" during practice. OK. OK. We had TWO hurdles that we set up in the back alley behind the school. The only time anyone on our team actually saw a full series of hurdles was at a track meet against schools who most definitely had more than two!
Our pole-vaulter (just so happens to be bigWebApps' CEO, Patrick Clements) was the biggest champion of the bootstrapping efforts, though. Our pole had as much flexibility as lead and the very safe landing mat was (not kidding) a mesh net with some not-so-foamy objects stuffed in. It appeared to me that someone had visited the dumpster of a local carpeting store and selected the finest (but under-appreciated) scraps of carpet padding available.
In the 7+ years since we founded bigWebApps, we have created some great products, formed and cultivated some amazing relationships with clients, and improved our overall business intelligence. But there really is one primary reason why bigWebApps was able to survive those dreaded first 5 years for new businesses: Our CEO, Patrick, was diligent (read "downright stubborn" at times) about keeping costs low whenever and wherever possible. --I'll save our early hotel and rental car accommodations for a later date!
The bootstrapping culture has been set. Dr. Cornwall's posts will give you ideas for other areas (such as how to hire other bootstrappers) where you can cultivate the bootstrapping culture.
And thanks to the Holy Name Cardinals' non-existent budget for teaching us early lessons!
Other posts in Dr. Cornwall's series: Recruiting Bootstrappers, Rewarding Bootstrappers, and Bootstrapping Top Down
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Early Bootstrapping Lessons
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