Drown or swim. How using bootstrapping to pump into a classy entrepreneur

Once, in 2005, my life flowed monotonously.

I got up early in the morning, left the apartment on Brooklyn Heights, dragged with a laptop to the nearest Starbucks.
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After working there for several hours, he crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, went to the West Village and landed there at another coffee shop.

At about three o'clock in the afternoon, I was so impudent that I could hardly type on the keyboard. As a detox, I went to a lecture in the evening at New York University, where I took a course in marketing.

It was then that I just started to create my company JotForm . I was extremely interested in the idea that came to me - to create draggable web forms. However, this idea was a real challenge - from time to time it seemed to be very heavy at all.

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Often we recall the past in a nostalgic, relaxed way. For example, we recall the first months at the university. Forgotten thrill of first love. Difficult, but inspiring months spent on the creation of the first business or in pursuit of a dream. All roughness is erased, usually only happy memories are permanently preserved.

Thirteen years later, I remember those long New York days with a huge positive. I am embarrassed and grateful that a thriving product has grown out of my simple idea: we now have 3.2 million users and more than 100 employees .

But when your business is just beginning, and you are engaged in hard work - having neither venture capital nor investors - you are not alone. I know firsthand how to survive.

It is not easy to grow a business without external financing.

You need to flounder, or immediately drown.

You also have to efficiently allocate resources and plan work. If you are in deep slough and without a life jacket - it's time to improvise.

That's why I think that bootstrapping can pump you as an entrepreneur; and this is how I propose to cope with the challenges that he puts before you.

1. Wear all your hats - until you collapse under their weight

Maybe you are a developer, designer, production engineer or artist. If you are an independent founder, then you will have to be responsible for working with clients, for reception / delivery, to be a marketer and PR manager and, of course, a personnel manager. You will do all this.

When you try to create a great product, and you have to mess around with all this “side-line”, this can be exhausting. It seems that you are wasting your time, looking up from your favorite business, which you probably can do better than anyone.

I took a refresher marketing course at New York University because I needed to learn how to promote my product. I could not afford an employee for this purpose.



I can not say that it was the best use of my time, but I was really inspired by the opening opportunities. I also read all the marketing blogs that I came across, all the books and free resources I could find — to think big.

The same thing happened with customer service. For the first six years in our company, no one except me was engaged in customer support .

Even after I hired a developer and designer for full time, I worked from morning to evening, answering letters and calls for technical support. In the end, I realized that it was time to invest in customer support.

How do I know when to spend money?

Firstly, we had a rule: we hire a person, if we have enough money in the bank to pay him a salary for a year. We ticked this box.

If you have the resources - then carefully watch the time. The founder must act strategically. You must calculate the next steps and predict bold and original directions for business development.

You have to solve big problems .

If you buy computer equipment for employees all day, install software and cannot delegate this work to anyone, you can enlist the help. Take off a few hats.

2. Fairly prioritize

A three-year-old child is changeable, because he is learning to distinguish between what is “like” and “necessary.” The kid wants all the toys, but is forced to share with his brother. He wants some cookies, and he is forced to eat both fruits and vegetables.

In addition, the founder can constantly jerk . You can create a terrific product without leaving your home, and not rent an expensive office.

Do not sign any rental contracts until the extension becomes an absolute necessity. Use free software if it is suitable for your business. Always have time to improve.

Suck up the skills that will help promote your product, and use them in practice. Engage in PR and bookkeeping until it gets in the way.

Most of us do not like to think about the sacrifices that an entrepreneur needs to make. Yes, in a start-up culture, reprocessing and the seven-day work week are often extolled , but the most successful founders usually manage to find compromises that are not often spoken of.

In 2006, I moved from New York back to Turkey. I liked the USA, and there was no urgent need to leave; it's just time to move to a normal office and hire the first employees for an acceptable budget.

Back in Ankara, I was able to get by with minimal expenses. Go forward without risking my fledgling business. I made such a sacrifice for the sake of the product.

Many years later, we opened a headquarters in San Francisco. The circle was closed - and I was especially proud of this event, because I felt that the choice I had made a long time ago was justified.

3. Remember that cultivation takes (too much) time.

Ağaç yaş iken eğilir.

This Turkish proverb can be roughly translated as: "rot branches, until you are numb." Such a rule is useful to the gardener, the parent - and the businessman.

If you run on your own, then you probably don’t have enough money . To stay afloat, you have to rely on savings or first income. In addition, the need to develop rapidly. Procrastination is not allowed (of course, if your last name is not Rockefeller).

The positive point is that at the dawn of a startup, it is very easy to reorient it. You can make a product release, wait for feedback and adjust to the needs of the market . As the proverb suggests, your business is still plastic.

However, a tall, inflexible tree with long branches and deep roots is not so malleable. If a product is overgrown with longstanding capabilities and solutions, then its reorientation may be technically difficult.



Psychologically, you may also not want to change the course of development of a fully developed product. Founders who rely on venture capital and have spent whole years preparing the “final” first release are usually more confident about what has already been done, and not what customers recommend.

People tend to feel involved in the project, which spent a lot of energy and strength. That is why the flexible and speed development model characteristic of startups is preferable.

When I advise young founders, I recommend them to make the first release as quickly as possible . Do not finish to perfection. Come out, listen to users and strive for perfection. Your tree at this stage will still be flexible, and you do not miss the chic features.

Why? As technology advances, many people come up with the same ideas, this is natural. So it was with me. Until 2006, no one tried to create web forms (it was in that year that I made the first release of JotForm), but already in that very year I had three competitors.

They saw the very unoccupied niche on the market and created their products while I roamed between New York coffee houses.

So, take a moment. Share your work as early as possible. This is the most effective way to compete against well-funded startups (and rare entrepreneurs who have trust funds).

4. Continue to fight, but on your terms.

Bootstrapping is not an easy path. It requires commitment , ingenuity and confidence.

But, despite all the challenges, I still believe that this is the best way to develop a business.

If you survive and dream of a bank account that is bursting with venture capital, consider the following list as my parting word. Let me remind you all the reasons why you should follow the chosen course:

• A small team (or a solo business) is easier to manage at an early stage. You can focus on your product or service, and not waste your time on recruiting, staffing, office planning meetings or reports to irritated investors.
• You can change or adapt the product, focusing on the reaction of the user. Your tree is still flexible. Use this time to the maximum and do not stop improving.
• If you carry all your hats, you will become an expert, and this is priceless as long as the business grows. You will feel what it's like to do PR, provide customer support, be responsible for marketing - so you can find yourself a changer when the time comes. In the long run, understanding all the nuances of a business will help you grow as an entrepreneur and become a strong leader.
• You can slowly build a distinctive corporate culture . You will have a field for learning from mistakes and stable development.
• Needle for invention is cunning. I know how easy it is to say - nevertheless, this is true. You will work more efficiently if you constantly focus on the essence. Look for innovative solutions. Seek workarounds that will give priority to your main offer and your customers.
• You are in charge. This is the most important advantage. You don't belong to anyone, and no one will stop you from spending a week picking olives if you want to do just that. You can manage your company as you wish, when you want, to deal with the people for whom you want to get up and go to work every morning.

So, let's raise a glass for all independent founders in this world. If you are on fire in some way, or if you are feeling defeated today, it doesn't matter. Keep on floundering.

Rejoice in the trials, train on them strength and endurance. No matter how it happened - I make a toast to you.

About the translator

The article is translated in Alconost.

Alconost is engaged in the localization of games , applications and sites in 68 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.

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