Filed in archive Philosophy by Shawn Hessinger on April 30, 2007

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Having reviewed this great list, let's try a follow-up exercise. If you can think of any startup don'ts (or even some startup do's), post 'em on your own ...

11-20 (Logos to business addresses)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Link: 20 startup tips CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST For his second 10 No-No's Dane suggests: 11. Thou Shalt Not Design A Logo Oh-oh! Explain that light bulb thingy at the top of your website th...

6-10 (Accountants to Patents)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Link: 20 startup tips CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST 6. thou Shalt Not Hire An Accountant Dane recommends Quickbooks Simple Start. (An accountant actually recommended I buy this while I was trying to...

5. Thou Shalt Not Hire An Attorney

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Link: 20 startup tips CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Automattic Inc., the folks who maintain the popular wordpress blogging platform, have posted a great blurb in the Terms of Sevice section of their ...

4. Thou Shalt Not Rent An Office

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Link: 20 startup tips CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST As Dane points out, working from home usually costs you nothing to start and no rent. Here are my own tips for working at home with some helpful co...

2 and 3 (corporations and bank accounts)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Link: 20 startup tips CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST 2. thou Shalt Not Incorporate Especially not in the state of Pennsylvania where I live and which boasts (for some reason) one of the highest corpo...

1. Thou Shalt Not Quit Thy Day Job

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Link: 20 startup tips CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST I've posted about this one before. Leaving your day job before you have a viable business model worked out (not on paper, I'm talking about...

Ten Commandments (X 2) for business startup

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Here's a great set of rules to follow for any bootstrapping entrepreneur. Business Opportunities Weblog Network creator Dane Carlson has assembled what I think are the ultimate Ten Commandments (...

Read more!

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 29, 2007

Thanks to Romanian entrepreneur and blogger Cristian Dorobantescu for the great previous guest posts and for the link back from his own blog here. Cristian's got four other great posts on the sub...

Employee commitment in bootstrapped versus externally funded companies (Part 6)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 27, 2007

Link: Cristian Dorobantescu CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Higher determination to succeed. Now, really, in a self funded company, if you're doing it wrong, it might be the end. You can't af...

Employee commitment in bootstrapped versus externally funded companies (Part 5)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 27, 2007

Link: Cristian Dorobantescu CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST And then, there is the self-accomplishment feeling. If you are in a small company, you know that everything that was done, was done by you. I...

Employee commitment in bootstrapped versus externally funded companies (Part 4)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 27, 2007

Link: Cristian Dorobantescu CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Also, self funded companies are better in using resources. Sure, I'm talking about travel expenses, office supplies and stuff like that, ...

Employee commitment in bootstrapped versus externally funded companies (Part 3)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 23, 2007

Link: Cristian Dorobantescu CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Then, externally funded companies could offer better payments to employees - which in theory attracts better specialists - in reality this al...

Employee commitment in bootstrapped versus externally funded companies (Part 2)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 23, 2007

Link: Cristian Dorobantescu CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Now that we have established the basics, here is the idea: from my experience, self-funded companies tend to have higher commitment, more rel...

Employee commitment in bootstrapped versus externally funded companies (Part 1)

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 22, 2007

Link: Cristian Dorobantescu CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST During my 5 years working in software companies I got the chance to work on both self-funded (and bootstrapped) and external funded companies...

Bootstrapping in Eastern Europe: An occasional series

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship by Shawn Hessinger on April 22, 2007

Editor's Note: (Cristian Dorobantescu is a software sales professional and bootstrap entrepreneur living in Bucharest, romania. He is the founder of Energybyte, a web design firm started with two ...

Blog silence to be observed

Filed in archive Philosophy by Shawn Hessinger on April 22, 2007

A bit off the topic of bootstrapping...or is it? German serial entrepreneur Steli Efti plans to start a revolution with nothing in the way of resources...nothing but a black screen and an idea that ...

Bootstrap venture gains momentum

Filed in archive Bootstrapper News by Shawn Hessinger on April 22, 2007

Think a bootstrap company can't grab national headlines and adopt a socially conscious philosophy right from the start? You'd be wrong! Bootstrap entrepreneur Shelli Styles has done just tha...

Yahoo! tools give more options to the bootstrap retailer

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Resources by Shawn Hessinger on April 22, 2007

So, you want to start a retail business, but you're mindful of bootstrapping principles. You would prefer to get some kind of cash flow going before you start spending on things like store front ...

BootStrapMe makes great business blogs list

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Resources by Shawn Hessinger on April 21, 2007

Thanks to UK blogger Sanjay for including BootStrapMe in his "Great Business Blogs of '06" list. Among Sanjay's other picks were fellow Creative Weblogging contributors Greg Balanko...

Surprised by customers (Part 9)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 17, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Above all, don't be surprised when those customers do find you and be ready to react accordingly. Don't be lulled into believing that you'll always be toiling...

Surprised by customers (Part 8)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 17, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Anyway, the lesson I think bootstrappers need to take from this is that often a venture started with little fanfare and no big investment can take a while to catch on, bu...

Surprised by customers (Part 7)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 15, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Visitors to the n10ah site were asking for new features most of which I had fortunately anticipated and I began stringing up ads from AuctionAds, a new service that had s...

Surprised by customers (Part 6)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 15, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Then suddenly two weeks ago it happened. Out of nowhere and after a humble re-launch proclaiming a new and more focused direction, the site began to get better traffic cl...

Surprised by customers (Part 5)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 15, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST At first, limited reaction and an uncertainty about the direction the new venture would take (read more about this in future posts as well) led to limited involvement on ...

Surprised by customers (Part 4)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 14, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Back in November, I launched the first in what has become a family of web-based ventures. Known as n10ah, an online independent music network, it has since been joined by...

Surprised by customers (Part 3)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 14, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST After all your careful preparation you have left the front door locked without realizing it and for several hours have not been able to take advantage of a group of payin...

Surprised by customers (Part 2)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 14, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE As you sit there in your newly opened but empty retail store, suddenly you hear a sound-like a gentle wrapping-out near the entrance. You make your way around from your ...

Surprised by customers (Part 1)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips by Shawn Hessinger on April 12, 2007

Imagine sitting at the cash register of a newly opened retail establishment and glancing up at the clock on the wall hour after hour as not a single customer enters the store. You've invested a w...

We interrupt this broadcast

Filed in archive Bootstrapper News by Shawn Hessinger on April 9, 2007

Hi, and hope everyone had a Happy Easter/passover holiday. Despite the slight delay in posting over the last week, we're back with a vengeance and will be interrupting our review of bootstrapping...

Bootstrapping secrets

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Resources by Shawn Hessinger on April 2, 2007

CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST Next on the list from the Kauffman Institute's recently installed and very helpful resource page is a link to Entrepreneur.com for a story on "bootstrapping secr...