What is a Bootstrapper?

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Thoughts on December 24, 2008

Dave Cheong had an interesting piece this week on bootstrapping. It was a nice, simple review of the concept.

"A bootstrapper is someone who uses his own time, money and resources to get a business launched...," Cheong writes. Then he asks every bootstrapper's favorite question: Isn't that crazy? I had to laugh, but I love his answer:

Maybe, but there is a method to my madness. Raising money with outside funds may be appropriate for some businesses, but.... If I was starting a company which required lots of initial funds (eg massive infrastructure, marketing, people, tools etc), then I wouldn't be able to bootstrap.

But the real art in his article was his summation of the attraction of bootstrapping:

When you have less money, you have less bull-crap. We don't have 10 people in meetings that last for 3 hours. We don't spend 2 months writing design documents before we start coding. We don't go on expensive trips to meet clients or chase a sale. We don't need to appease investors.

You can read Cheong's whole piece here.


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