In our next article review from the Kauffman Foundation's bootstrapping resource page, when entrepreneur Razor Suleman convinced his parents to loan him $15,000 for twenty cases of sports cards it launched his first business Upper Deck Sports.

In college, Suleman launched a business selling customized apparel on campus eventually evolving it into a business providing hats, backpacks and jackets to companies as motivation for employee sales.

He eventually launched I Love Rewards Inc., all with reinvested funds from his existing business. The online service allows the employees of client companies to choose their own rewards for sales accomplishments.

Along the way, Suleman learned some important bootstrapping lessons:

• Reinvest your profits-Suleman took the revenue from his first business in sports memorabilia and used it as capital to start his second
• Get paid up front-When running his branded apparel business in college he gave discounts for paying in advance and thus generally didn't have to spend his own money on inventory
• Keep overhead low-Even after graduating from college, Suleman operated his business on a shoestring working out of a small bargain office and hiring other recently graduated university students who agreed to work cheap

A fourth lesson has proved harder for Suleman to learn after years of bootstrapping. It may require even more money to grow his business to the next level, money Suleman won't be able to simply reinvest out of existing profits. He says:

...taking outside investors is the hardest decision a successful bootstrapper ever has to make.

For an idea of how bootstrapping can be used in concert with VC and other funding options re-read Bill Payne's "Bootstrapping Your Business" also from the Kauffman Foundation.