Bootstrap your bottom line (Part 2)

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips on July 30, 2008

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Brandon Alms


(Editor's Note: Continued from the PREVIOUS POST)

Here are some more great ideas from The Bootstrap Babes on how to boost your profit margin without spending a dime.

• Stay up an extra hour each night. Or two or three...seriously! There's been plenty written here and at other blogs about the tiring efforts that go into bootstrapping whether to launch or grow a business
• Find an accountability partner. Bootstrappers can sometimes be at least partially dreamers. It takes a special kind of person to see something that isn't there and figure how to build it out of nothing with no financial resources. Finding someone who will give you a good stiff belt of reality is often a step in the right direction.
• Focus on helping people, not making money. Though of course your main goal is increasing profitability, bootstrappers might argue the best way to do so is to increase the value of your product or the number of people interested in buying it.
• Exercise. OK, this is a tough one when you're giving up extra hours of sleep for your venture. But think how much time you'll have to think about your bootstrap endeavor while working out on the tread mill.
• Reward yourself. The Spartan bootstrapper existence is great, but remember you're doing all this for a reason. Be sure to do little things in your life-spending something extra on spouse or kids, buying yourself something, treating you and that someone special to a night out-that reinforces the benefit of becoming a successful entrepreneur.