Bootstrapping among top Forbes business concerns

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Trends on December 11, 2007

Whether to bootstrap your business startup remains one of the key questions for entrepreneurs according to this article at Forbes.com related in a more recent post from Terrence.

Forbes entrepreneurs editor Brett Nelson suggests:

If you can bootstrap your business, do it; raising money is difficult and distracting. If you plan on stumping for capital, consider how much equity and control you're willing to give up. (The more you need the money, the stiffer the terms will get, so ask for it sooner than later.) Finally, always remember to match the timing of cash inflows from your assets and the outflows to cover liabilities. A mismatch can sting.

From these observations some obvious suggestions emerge about how to decide whether bootstrapping is right for you:

• Bootstrapping puts you in the driver's seat. When you use outside funding you invite outside control. Realize that investors' concerns will now be competing with the needs of your business for your attention and plan accordingly.
• Investors will want a piece. Also realize that with every new investor your share of what your business makes and what it might sell for at some point in the future shrinks. You may feel there's plenty to go around, but remember the less investment you take on the more of your business you will be able to keep in the end.
• You can't always get what you want. But, as Mick Jagger says, "you get what you need". Unfortunately, what you need is likely to be at a higher rate of interest or for a greater share of the company than you might have wished. Try to do without and when your business is worth more you will be able to negotiate for more favorable terms.
• Even for the funded, cash flow is key. With more outside funding more cash flow will ultimately be needed to either service debt or satisfy investors. The more you spend the more you must make. Cutting back on that funding may make profitability more attainable.
• Keep your eye on the prize. For a bootstrapped Business Cash flow and profitability are the sole objectives. Once fund raising enters the picture a new goal having little or nothing to do with making your business profitable is now a part of the equation.

For more on Forbes' "The 20 Most Important Questions in Business" see the In Pictures section at Forbes.com.