Is a bootstrapped business real?

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on April 11, 2008

You bet it is...at least in my book!

Tim Berry asks (and answers) this fundamental question in his post "Does investment make the venture?".

Though I'm not sure I like Tim's seeming characterization of venture funding and angel investors as the high end of the entrepreneurial spectrum, the top of the food chain as it were, I like where he's going here.

In fact I think I'd argue...and have argued...that bootstrapping is, in some ways, more real than these other investor driven models and may be much more crucial to the entrepreneur during hard economic times.

Here's why:
• Revenue versus liquidity. With all the talk of frozen up investment dollars, it's easy to see that a simple revenue flow would have its advantages as a means of growing your business even in periods of recession
• Product versus projections. Deliver your product or service to customers willing to pay for it and you've established a concrete business model. Write a business plan and you have a projection of possible success. Which makes you feel more secure?
• Filling a need. Seek investment and you are offering one of an array of means by which the investor can make money. Find a unique need and fill it, and you've created a market all your own.
• Perfecting the sale. Greg Gianforte likes bootstrapping because it speeds up the time to market. Instead of waiting while seeking funding and then creating and launching your product, the bootstrapper perfects the sale first, without which there is no business.

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Photo Credit: Mary R. Vogt, MorgueFile