Blogosphere on Bootstrapping: Marc MacLeod
Marc MacLeod emailed me saying that “a topic near and dear to my frugal Scottish heart” and sent over a few useful tips in How to save money.
My last company, Terrascale, had its first revenues within three months of its seed funding. It made that sale with five people on board. It had no one in QA, no one in sales, no product managers — you get the point. We got our early adopter customers to be our product managers and QA. When we incorporated their feedback and engaged them, a funny thing happened — they bought more and they told their friends!
Marc also sent me this interview with Carl Mercier where Carl says something incredibly true:
If you have 1:10 odds to make a million dollars or 1:10,000 of making a billion. What do you chose? Seems pretty obvious to me. Especially if it’s your first startup!
This segment is a part in the series : Blogosphere on Bootstrapping
. Luke Timmerman . Brad Feld . Taylor Davidson . Jeff Cornwall . SVB . Dane Carlson . Tim Berry . Allan Young . Anne Clelland . Marc Dangeard . Jonathan Gosier . Marc MacLeod . Cathy Bogaart
Thanks for all the excellent tips on this blog about bootstrapping, and launching a new business venture. I’m a social entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of UniversalGiving (www.universalgiving.org).
One of my best tips for serving your business while saving money is to empower interns. College students and young professionals appreciate getting true on the ground experience. With a solid manual and practical activities, interns can do a lot of legwork and marketing outreach for you. We’ve had interns as young as 19 outreach to journalists and attain blog links and interviews.
Do make sure that the interns are getting great professional experience. For those proven, meet with them and help them with their career path. You can also offer to write a letter of recommendation.
In the end, everyone wins: your business, and the interns who worked with you.
Sincerely,
Pamela Hawley
Founder and CEO
UniversalGiving
phawley@universalgiving.org
http://www.universalgiving.org
Living and Giving blog
http://www.pamelahawley.wordpress.com
Fully agreed, Pamela. I also use Interns very aggressively.