Hot answers tagged bootstrapped
28
I am from Germany and have worked with several companies from India. In addition, I have some friends who outsourced to Russia. Our experience is all the same: The biggest problem remains the communication. If you want something easy, like a Wordpress template, it might work fine. But if your app is a little complex, you need to write down every little ...
22
Outsourcing software development can be a positive option but has major downsides. I've been badly burned with outsourced developers so here are 3 lessons that might help you.
First of all, realize that the more valuable the software you want to create, the less likely you are to successfully outsource its development. In other words, if your software might ...
15
Bootstrap if:
This is your first business
You don't know what you're doing
You'll probably just pee lots of money up the wall
You want to keep control
You have no plans to float or sell
Consider VC if:
Having the money will make a big difference
If the factor stopping your growth really is cash, and not experience or something else
You know what you're ...
13
There are three basic rules when deciding if a designer is worth it:
Look at their portfolio.
Look at their portfolio.
Look at their portfolio.
If you would pay their quote for one of their existing designs, then they are worth it.
If their portfolio does not appeal to you, or is not worth what is being asked, then shop around.
Though they may come ...
9
There are a number of screencasting utilities out there. Some are free, but for these I'd say there are better options to be had for ~$20 and the added features and quality are worth the minimal cost.
A few options:
Screen Mimic (Mac OS X)
iShowU (Mac OS X)
EasyScreenCapture (Win)
CamStudio (Win)
More expensive ("Professional") but very powerful:
...
9
Camtasia Studio (for years for PCs, now also for the Mac) is the leader for depth and sophistication. There's a sizable community built up around Camtasia. But having the right tool doesn't mean you'll get the results you want. Screencasting is a learned skill.
One new resource you should check out is Ian Ozsvald - Ian's "day job" is creating screencasts ...
8
Those fees really add up and you will have to do some research comparing rates locally specifically for the type of business you are going to do. Note that national banks have different schedules in different states.
We are in Seattle and I had to resort to a two bank solution:
Bank of America for day-to-day operations. They work for us because they:
...
8
You need exactly:
The amount of money you need to run the business until it becomes profitable
Plus the amount of money you need to support yourself and your family until you can afford to pay yourself what you are making now.
Double or triple those numbers because you are optimistic
Add a little bit extra in case of emergency
If you are running your ...
8
When your company's business requirements have expanded beyond the scope of what many of the open source CMS platforms can provide you will have sufficient revenue to pay to have a custom solution done properly.
A open source CMS platform is a custom site. there are 1,000 of templates to choose from: as an end point or a beginning. There are thousands of ...
7
Some alternatives to consider:
1) Working on the startup part-time.
2) Focusing initially on services/consulting, which is usually more predictable revenue.
3) Deferring the startup until you have sufficient savings to be able to go without the paycheck for a while.
All of these are non-ideal and involve some sort of compromise, but such is life.
7
Since you started this two years ago and alone, I believe going below 51% is not a good choice. When tough decisions come and they both disagree with you, the stock distribution will not help settling the issue.
Next time you start a business you've been cooking yourself, remember to approach your potential partners with a specific proposal in mind. A ...
7
I guess it depends on your business model, but three years seems excessive to me. When do you expect to start getting revenue? When do you expect to break even?
I think 1 year is a reasonable/realistic goal. You want to start getting revenue as soon as you can. Start selling your product as soon as you have a minimum viable product. Hopefully it doesn't ...
7
I have a wife, kids, mortgage etc and am bootstrapping. I am resigned to burning through my savings and and investments to provide the runway. If I haven't got enough traction, I'll start looking at contracting as the end of the runway approaches.
I think the best strategy is to keep the day job and work on your startup evenings and weekends while ...
6
Press releases are a useful tool; you'll find that there is another question in the wiki about writing a press release.
If you use press releases, make sure you write something of interest to the media you are pitching. I get a lot of press releases every day, occassionally a handful are relevant to me, but most often they go directly into a storage file or ...
6
A great resource that might help:
Seth Godin has covered this question in his manifesto titled The BootStrapper's Bible.
He even priced it accordingly for the bootstrapper, free. You can download it here:
http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/8.BootstrappersBible
Its probable a bad idea to bootstrap if you have easy access to a lot of capital, need a large ...
6
Giff Constable wrote a fantastic blog post on exactly this subject.
Yes it's possible, but few companies actually make the transition from consulting to products. Read that post for the pitfalls; if you know them and act accordingly I think it's a great way to build a business.
6
Bootstrapping isn’t just about being in your twenties and living in your parent’s basement. We are currently bootstrapping our business, and I’m happy to say that I don’t live in my parent’s basement, but sad to say that I am no longer in my twenties.
Bootstrapping is about making common sense decisions, being creative, and living within your means. That ...
6
Google Apps (Email, document sharing, hosting, forms)
FreshBooks (Invoicing)
MailChimp (Email marketing)
Unbounce (Landing pages)
Skype (Video calling, online phone)
Express versions of Visual Studio and
MS SQL (Development tools)
Getting Real (Book from 37 signals)
SurveyMonkey (Surveys)
All of the tools above are offered free, some of them have a more ...
6
Fred Wilson of Unions Square Ventures (investors in Stack Exchange, Twitter, Zynga, Feedburner, etc) have written well about employee equity here and employee equity dilution here.
Commonly startups will set aside 5-10% pre-Series A stock to divide among early employees and key hires.
I've adressed this question before here.
Edit: As Jesper points out in ...
6
You should consider a Startup Weekend. They bring together the actual production side, the management (sales and administration) and financial sides of business.
They are cheap to participate in and potentially help you access great people.
5
I would ignore your $5k investment. It's not that much money and clouds the issue a bit.
A lot depends on what degree of investment/sacrifice people are going to make. If one or the other is working at far below market value, I'd factor that in. I like to think not about how much equity I want to retain, but how much equity it will take to attract the ...
5
I just setup an account through a community bank. I figured, as a small business person, I should support local businesses. I used http://moveyourmoney.info/ to find a local bank that was rated well. I ended up with The Mechanics Bank, which is local to the San Francisco Bay Area. So far, so good. The big selling point for Mechanics Bank was that they had ...
5
Well - it sounds like you're pre-disposed to go it on your own, have the ability to code, and have beta launch / revenue opportunities defined.
I believe that once you spend some time doing the code, you'll either have a better appreciation of the complexity of the effort and understand its value, or you will be able specify what task(s) are best handled ...
5
Not spending enough time on the product because the billable hours are paying the bills.
Clients have different expectations when they are paying you by the hour/project than when they are buying your software. You'll have to say no a lot more when selling software.
Providing support to clients with different hardware, software, levels of ability, and ...
5
You could -- but do you really want to?
Pricing works as the only variable in comptetative advantage in the purchase of a true commodity -- where there is a clear apple-apple comparison. The less "value-add" there is on the commodity the more important the price will be. The more cost conscious your target market -- the more important price will be as a ...
5
If you have the time and the expertise to do it yourself I would say go for it, there are numerous benefits:
Saves money
You know it'll be done right
Easily manageable should any errors occur
Easier for you to upgrade should it be required
Once you start making money is when you might look to outsource as it won't affect you as much financially.
It ...
5
Since your business plan is to build multiple applications I have a suspicion there is some common aspect between the applications. i.e. each application is not unrelated bespoke development. If so, employ the rule of threes and use the first two or three apps to build your "formula" that defines the core of your business. This means key architecture ...
5
I would not write off outsourcing completely based on the price of offshore development. The other option is to look to a North American firm - I think you'll find that you get a better result, faster and for cheaper that way.
I've seen this from two sides. First, when I was running my own startup, we attempted to outsource development both in North ...
4
I've rarely seen press releases work, for technology products anyway. What almost always happens is you write them, submit them. The bots pick them up but humans ignore them. Although occasionally - very occasionally - they just run them word for word.
What has worked is building personal relationships with journalists / influential bloggers, and then ...
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