Bootstrapping advice still rings true

Filed in archive Bootstrapper Tips on May 19, 2008

Startup Africa recently revisited Guy Kawasaki's The Art of Bootstrapping post from his blog How To Change the World.

It's long been a favorite of mine, and here, for my money, are the four key points:
• Focus on cash flow not profitability. As long as revenue is being generated, your business survives. Profitability is more important in ventures that start with large investments and have a clearly defined break even point. With a bootstrapped business, worry first and foremost whether you have enough money coming in to pay the bills. There's no better way to know whether to move forward.
• Ship, Then Test. The real excitement in a new venture comes when you get that product or service out to customers. The feedback you will get will define the future of your enterprise, not just whether they like your product or not but how they are likely to use it.
• Focus on function not form. Here's a thought about Ebay from VC James Chen that makes the point perfectly.
• Go direct. In a recent post called Be your own record label I pointed out that in the music business as in many other businesses today it is more possible than ever to get the product out directly to customers and for the bootstrapper who will count on the word of mouth of satisfied customers to spread the word about a new product or service this is really imperative.

Mix these together with an important point from another great Kawasaki post Top 10 Lies of Marketers. Kawasaki says:

You might try to position your product in a certain way, but ultimately customers, not you, position your product. You take your best shot and then you see how customers react-if, frankly, they react at all. But, at the end of the day, you're hardly in total control of positioning.

Here are my own thoughts on The Art of Bootstrapping post. Leave your favorite points in the comment section or in our MySpace and Yahoo! groups for further discussion.

Photo Credit: Nicolas Raymond, Morguefile