Bootstrapping is a business from scratch. Part 1

In this series of articles, I will talk about our experience of raising a business only on my own from a complete zero to a turnover of 350 thousand euros per year, or, as this phenomenon is also called, bootstrapping.

In an article for the Oleg Tinkoff website, I already talked about what we do and how we came to this. And in this same series of articles I will focus on the technical and organizational aspects that worry every novice entrepreneur.

My husband and I started in 2010 together, when our first son was born. We wanted:

• financial freedom;
• independence from the place of residence.

At that time we did not have:

• time;
• knowledge;
• of money.

At the same time, the situation was complicated by the fact that we were developing a completely new product, which had no analogues on the market at all.

What we had to face during the work, what to learn:

1. where to find money;
2. how to work with freelancers;
3. hiring employees, dismissal;
4. delegation;
5. sales;
6. work with clients;
7. work with objections;
8. earning a reputation;
9. crisis management;
10. accounting;
11. legal issues.

However, we still have not solved 3 problems:

1. marketing;
2. low website conversion;
3. employee motivation.

What we have for 2016:

• a European company with a turnover of about 350 thousand euros per year;
• the ability to invest and start new projects;
• a team of 40 people;
• five sons;
• resolved the issue of housing;
• the ability to independently plan their lives.

I think these showed very good, so I decided to share our experience of creating a business only on my own without attracting borrowed capital.
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So, we went according to the bootstrapping scheme - this is when there is no money for a good start (team, advertising, technology, product, business tools, experience) and you need to come up with something that will be very beneficial to distinguish you from those who have all this .

Bootstrapping differs from a startup in that you initially only rely on yourself and your money, and do not develop an idea for which you will then look for an investor.

Reasons to rely only on themselves, and not on an outside uncle, each with their own. These are our reasons:

• lack of experience in writing a business plan;
• lack of experience in negotiations and sales;
• elementary ignorance of places where there are "angels";
• unwillingness to be under pressure from investors and the need to work out the money invested in you;
• desire to remain the sole owner of the business, etc.

In addition, neither my husband nor I had any entrepreneurial experience.

We were not going to chase after investors, as our main focus is on family and children. For us it was important to maintain inner peace of mind and physical presence in the house.

It is clear that when millions of dollars flow into your startup, then the profit is expected in the same millions, moreover, as quickly as possible. When you pour a few dollars into your business and you are very limited in time, you need to understand that the return will not come immediately.

During the preparation of this article, I raised all our records of those times and saw that for 6 years of work nothing has changed: we are still working in strict accordance with the principles and ideology that we laid 6 years ago.

It took us about a year and a half to formulate them clearly. After all, until that moment everything was aimed only at earning 100 Euro, 500 Euro, 1000 Euro. That is, we thought finely. And they saw nothing beyond their nose.

And only after defining the mission, vision and strategy, we went confidently and clearly aware of our path. The breakthrough was our answers to the questions that I will give below.

These are the questions we have answered ourselves before starting:

1. If I had a chest with gold, what would I do?
2. Why do we need a business?
3. What are we best at?
4. What are our strengths? (personal).
5. What are our past achievements and victories?
6. What is your Passion? (I can not correctly translate into Russian, so as not to lose the power of the phrase).
7. What is our competitive advantage?
8. What is our mission, vision and strategy ?.
9. Who are my top 10 competitors online and offline?
10. What are the 10 advantages of each of my competitors?
11. Who is my client? (gender, age, geography, interests, problems, marital status)
12. What problems can sink my business?
13. Where do I see myself in 10 years?
14. How much money per month do I need for a perfect life?
15. What are you willing to sacrifice / what to go to create a business?
16. How to set the right prices?
17. What is the volume of the market?
18. Why is my product or service important to the customer?
19. What first impression should my company have on my client?
20. Five definitions with which the client associates my company and product?
21. If my company was in the form of a man who now enters the door, how should he look? What should be dressed?
22. What are (will be) key positions in my company, tasks, what qualities should a person have at each of the positions?
23. What do we sell?
24. What will we earn?
25. What happens after we are satisfied with the profits?

Of course, there were other questions to which we answered constantly throughout the first years, but these were the most important at the beginning of our journey.

For example, when we were trained in the company of Robert Kiyosaki, one of the first difficult tasks was to describe the mission to 120 words, then reduce this text to 80, and then again to 40 words. After reading it after 6 years, I was pleasantly surprised that nothing had changed.

In this introductory article I would like to highlight a list of some books that we have read and the principles of which we apply in our work:

1. Kjell A. Nordstrom, Jonas Ridderstrale. Funky business;
2. Jim Kemp. First say NO;
3. Michael A. Lecter. Protect your main asset;
4. Elia M. Goldrat Jeff Cox Purpose. The process of continuous improvement;
5. Richard Branson. To hell with all of it! Take it and do it !;
6. Richard Branson. Losing innocence;
7. Oleg Tinkov. I am like everyone else;
8. Oleg Tinkov. How to become a businessman;
9. Robert Kiyosaki. Rich dad, poor dad;
10. Robert Kiyosaki. Cash flow quadrant;
11. Robert Kiyosaki. Before you start your business;
12. Robert Kiyosaki. Retire Young and Rich;
13. Ayn Rand. Atlas Shrugged;
14. Bodo Schaefer Money or money alphabet;
15. Getting Real by 37signals;
16. David Heinemeier, Hensson, Jason Fride. Rework: a business without prejudice;
17. Henry Ford. My Life and Work;
18. Andrew Grove. Only the paranoid survive;
19. Jim Collins. Good to Great;
20. Blanchard K., Johnson S. Manager for one minute;
21. Og Mandino. The Greatest Salesman In The World;
22. George S. Clayson. The richest man in Babylon;
23. Howard Schultz, Dory Jones Yeng. Put your heart in it. How a cup after cup was built by Starbucks;
24. John caho The subconscious mind can do anything;
25. Jeffrey Young. “ICon: Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business”;
26. James Allen. As a man thinks;
27. Sergey Azimov. How to make money without start-up capital;
28. Lee Iacocca. Career manager;
29. Michael E. Gerber. P-myth;
30. Brian Tracy. Leave the disgust, eat the Frog;
31. Benjamin Graham. The intelligent investor;
32. Walter Isaacson. Steve Jobs;
33. Brian Tracy. Reaching the maximum;
34. Jim Rohn 7 strategies for achieving wealth and happiness;
35. Gavin Kennedy. Everything is negotiable !;
36. Randy gage Why are you stupid, sick and poor;
37. Philip Kotler. Marketing Essentials;
38. Stephen R. Covey. First things first;
39. Leo Babauta. The power of less;
40. M. Rafael N. Rafael. How to win a customer;
41. Chet Holmes. Incredible sales car;
42. Tony Schwartz Jim Loher. Life at full power. Energy management is the key to high performance, health and happiness;
43. David Malden Management and power of NLP;
44. Sun Ji. War Craft;
45. McNeilli M. Sun-tzu and the art of business. Six strategic management principles;
46. Niccolo Macchiavelli. The sovereign;
47. Business coach Vladimir Tarasov - articles and audio recordings;
48. Business coach Alexander Friedman - articles and audio recordings;
49. Tao Toyota. 14 principles of management of the leading company in the world.

I plan to write articles in the form of answers to the points of the block “What I had to face and learn,” and how we solved it.

Your point specific questions in the comments will help me so that I know what is interesting and what I can answer by including the answer in a new article.

The next article is about money. Where and how much they took at the beginning, our expenses, turnover and net profit .