"Business Pundit" Robert May, a fellow blogger here at Creative Weblogging, had these comments about the so-called "bootstrapper's dilemma" as described by "Zen Entrepreneur" Rizwan Virk.

The question? Focus on your core business or bring enough cash in to keep the doors open no matter what.


In mid-August when starting the first "Streams" for PostRanger.com, a new social blogging network I have been bootstrapping, I posted regularly on topics like "Indie Music", "Retro 50's" culture and "Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film & TV".

I had already outsourced most of my other business functions. I was not a programmer and found TypePad a useful enough platform for what I wanted to accomplish supporting multiple blogs at once and offering the ability to invite unlimited guest authors.

I also have no advertising department. TypePad offers ready made ad widgets and, of course, in time there will be PayPerPost, AdSense and other possibilities.

However, my initial plan was not to do all the blogging myself. From the very beginning this was to be a social network for guest authors. Besides the task of maintaining what has become 16 "Streams" or topics and growing was completely unfeasible for one person.

I soon focused on just updating the main blog for the community launched last week and on sending out invites which have borne fruit in some guest contributions already and more interest.

From the experience, I learned five key things about focus in the bootstrapping process:

1. In bootstrapping, reality will determine your focus. With PostRanger.com I couldn't maintain 16 much less 20 or 30 blogs by myself so the reality of the situation pulled me back to my initial business model. Even if I wind up being wrong about the willingness of users to create occasional posts on various topic blogs the way people now create pages on MySpace, the concept of the main blog has drawn enough of an audience that it will be a decently profitable business in itself within months, which brings us to...

2. There is no growth without survival. Making the venture profitable will guarantee its survival after which growth will occur either as a social guest blogging network as originally planned or in some new direction if that seems to be going no where.

3. Cash flow always remains the key. Because I am a part-time entrepreneur cash flow is not a problem and each new side venture like PostRanger.com creates an increase to my overall income. If the additional income does not justify my time in maintaining the site or if it takes away from other more promising opportunities, focusing on cash flow will help me maintain the proper perspective about whether the project is a business or just what seemed to be a good idea.

4. Concept is nice but execution is everything. There were some misconceptions I had going in to PostRanger.com, mainly about what the expectations of users might be. I thought from the beginning that users would include two groups, experienced bloggers and web masters wanting to build traffic through links and new users just wanting to express themselves. I was right about that but what I totally forgot about was the feedback folks who hadn't guest authored or even blogged before might need about what this thing was and how it worked.

5. Focus on the business not the idea. In the end, PostRanger.com and other bootstrapping businesses will either create value for their users or they won't. The initial reaction has been good. We'll see. Despite the fact that cash is key to whether the venture is a sustainable business or not, I've always believed the value a business or product creates for users is important. The bootstrapper knows the user has as much to do with creating that value as he/she does.