Bootstrapping the Olympics
At the Olympics this week, you can't help but be impressed with the organization and scale of everything that the organizers are pulling off leading up to, during, and even after the Games. It's almost the opposite of bootstrapping. But then you have to think about how all of this actually gets to this point. The organizers have about seven years from the point they find out that they will be hosting the game until the time when the flame is lit. How many other businesses build out from nothing to envelop a multi-billion dollar entity with huge construction projects, massive transportation demands, and all sorts of other requirements that modern enterprises must fulfill? Now that is bootstrapping!
But something that interests me even more are the more traditional boostrappers, the small entrepreneurs and shops that act as pilot fish to the huge shark of the Games. On every street corner here in Vancouver you see some business or other that is making hay while the sun shines (which it actually did, yesterday, briefly, before returning to overcast today), capitalizing on events to pull themselves further up. From the restaurants to the trinket vendors, they're all riding on coat tails… but it may be a long set of coat tails. How many repeat customers will they see from this surge? How many of these visitors will be back in Vancouver in the future, having discovered a place they enjoy, and remembering what they did there? I am guessing a lot. And maybe that's the best lesson for bootstrappers to take from this event. If you can find someone else's boots to hang on to on the up swing, grab hold!