How do you know your business model is sound?

During a visit to the City of Pottsville in the Pennsylvania anthracite region this weekend, my wife and I came upon the above vintage vase and talked with the owner.

My wife has been trying to restart a musical career recently with her songwriting efforts, the ultimate bootstrapped business requiring nothing but talent and maybe a guitar.

But she's been wondering if she could justify the time taken away from a day job to pursue her dream-in other words, whether her songwriting constitutes a sound bootstrap business model.

We found the guy apparently in no mood to sell but he invited us to attend an open mic at Many Worlds Gallery in the city the same night anyway.

For fair disclosure, the open mic is the same I covered in this post for PostRanger.com, but to be honest my decision to cover the event came later.

In an effort to encourage my wife to perform, the guy we had met suddenly made an unexpected proposal. In exchange for my wife singing a single song he would give us the vase free-an estimated $75 to $100 value we estimate.

On our way home later that evening carrying our prize, I asked my wife if she was aware of the incredibly special thing that had just happened. She said she wasn't.

"You just exchanged something of value with someone you don't even know," I replied.

In the end, this is the essence of bootstrapping, not investing large sums in a business but exchanging a product or service you've created, often with very little money, for something of value.

It is the way the bootstrapper knows he/she has proved a business model and the way I know my wife will be working on her music an awful lot more in the near future.

Happy Bootstrapping!