Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Magdalena Duczkowska

Once the wave of exuberance over starting a new bootstrap business passes giving way to a lot of hard work accompanied by occasional disappointment, it's time to take some serious stock.

Unlike the funded model, there may not be any big checks in your immediate future to solve some of your major problems (like having neither the time nor money to do all the things you'd like to do from day one in your business.) This presupposes, of course, that you're bootstrapping for the long haul not just long enough to get backing.

Remember, whether you eventually take funding for your company or not, most of the principles below apply, either when trying to start a business from nothing or when making due with whatever funding you are able to raise. Ignore them at your own peril:

• Take criticism seriously. Though it's the part that NOBODY wants to deal with, the fact is criticism can be your best friend, if you learn to read it correctly. Learn to draw inspiration from your customers' complaints to build a better product by knowing the difference between things you can change, things you can't and what requests are just unreasonable.
• Treat your startup like a job. You would think this would be obvious to anyone. But, if the reason you became an entrepreneur is so you wouldn't have to do it, it's time for some unpleasant facts. Behind all the supposed glamour that comes with owning your own business, there's just a lot of plain old fashioned effort. Think of it this way. The only difference between work you do for your startup and what you do for an employer is the person who owns what is built by that labor in the end.
• Reinvent yourself daily. There will be things that don't work and paths that lead to no where. The benefit of bootstrapping is that while you have no money, you also have no constraints. With no one looking over your shoulder to tell you, 'That's not how you do it,' finding the right equation may be easier.
• Focus on problem solving. Most business goals can be better seen as a series of challenges to overcome or problems to be solved than as the pursuit of a single and constant goal. Break your startup into challenges and set priorities for what must be done. With each problem you solve you will find others arising. Keep the process going and you will slowly inch toward your goal...often almost without realizing.
• Never give up. Never surrender. OK, yeah, it's a quote from that Tim Allen Star Trek satire, but it applies to bootstrapping too. There are days you will feel like throwing in the towel. Remember, very few things are an immediate success. Persistence is key in the end.

For more information and interaction with like-minded folks on the subject of bootstrapping, consider joining out groups on both Yahoo! and MySpace today.