So, what do you do when you lack the skills to create the product or service you hope to bootstrap?

A recent post at Bootstrap in Bangalore offers this advice for the entrepreneur who may at first not seem the right fit for the venture he/she imagines:

The lesson is to break the dream into smaller actionables and even scale down business objectives into more achievable targets with lesser resources. As long as those smaller business objectives are 'making you the right person' for the bigger objectives you are doing fine. So if you want to sell an educational ERP system, it might be a good idea to make colleges your customer by first doing a small alumni portal for them. Doing something smaller for the same customers or something because of which skills/experience develop in the area of interest is a great way to bootstrap.

I plan a similar approach in efforts to bring my own bootstrap project PostRanger.com (part blog platform/part social network/part message board/part discussion group) to the web.

My steps:

• First focus on content. As a content creator I'll be concentrating on the type of content I as a user would create for a platform like PostRanger.com if it existed today
• Try to generate revenue. The revenue from content created on already existing platforms TypePad, Squidoo, Blogger etc. can be used for the part of the venture where I lack expertise-building the network itself
• Find partners. Whether providers who work as independent contractors helping me build my vision or full-fledged partners who handle the technical side of the venture for free, my hope is that talking about the project will draw folks with the skills necessary to help me see it through
• Build/Promote. Once constructed the platform could easily be marketed virally both by simply telling others about it and simply using it myself and recruiting other content creators to do the same.

Want to talk more about the idea and how could be part of the equation? E-mail here.

Photo Credit: bmwvan, MorgueFile