categories
HOT TOPICS
- Platform as a Service
- Startup Ideas For The Post Covid World
- Women And Entrepreneurship
- The Million Dollar Club
- The Other 99% (Entrepreneurs)
- Probability of Raising Funding
- Series A Crunch
- Death by Overfunding
- Bootstrapping to Exit
- Corporate Innovation
- SaaS Companies: You Have An Unprecedented Opportunity
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
Forbes Column 08: Bootstrap Yourself
Posted on Friday, Apr 18th 2008
My new Forbes column Bootstrap Yourself highlights Silicon Valley’s hottest new trend, Bootstrapping. Great bootstrapping case studies I have covered are Sridhar Vembu, Frank Levinson and Jerry Rawls, Cree Lawson, and Beatrice Tarka. Sridhar, Frank and Jerry did it almost without any outside money, while Cree and Beatrice have done it with very small rounds of Angel funding. Aspiring entrepreneurs, you have much to learn from them.
This segment is a part in the series : Forbes Column 08
. Connecting With Your Intimate Bot
. The Gap in Google's Defenses
. A Recession-Proof Corner of the Tech Sector
. eBay's Bounce-Back Opportunity
. How To Dig Out Yahoo's Treasures
. The Microsoft-Yahoo! Battle Plan
. What Microsoft Should Do While Yahoo! Dithers
. The Next VMWare
. The Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur
. The Coming Death of Indian Outsourcing More »»
. India - Cash Rich, Product Poor
. How to Save the World's Back Office
. Latin America's eCommerce Leader
. The Next Indo-China War
. The Real VCs of Silicon Valley
. Fund Envy
. Bootstrap Yourself
. The Coming Convergence
. Lighting The Way In India
. Hydro-Alchemy
. How Amazon Could Change Publishing
. A Technological Fix For Education
. How Technology Can Save Retailers
. Mobile Microfinance
. How To Heat Up Solar
. How Chip Toolmakers Can Survive
. Kill The Business Trip
. Water Firm Enlivens IPO Market
. Web-Savvy Authors Reap Fame, Fortune
. Peeking Inside the iPhone
. Bootstrapping, Montana Style
. Entrepreneurs Flock To Online Travel
. Silicon Lazarus
. Carts Ahead Of Horses
. Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction
. Barack Obama' s Finance Lesson
. Stimulus Package For Entrepreneurs
. Building A Smarter Corporation
. Deconstructing The Cloud
. 'SaaS-ing' Back At The Economy
. Web 3.0
. My Adventure With Amazon
. An S.O.S. To Silicon Valley
. OLPC’s Last Billion
. Capitalism Revisited
. Bargains For Private Equity
. President Obama
. Perilous Protectionism
. Healing Health Care
. Stop The Fear Epidemic
. Obama
. 'Edutainment' Needs Entrepreneurs
Featured Videos
The Other 99%
Can 1M/1M Help Me Raise Money?
How Does 1M/1M Democratize Entrepreneurship Education?
How Does 1M/1M Democratize Management Consulting?
When Is The Right Time To Join 1M/1M?
Can 1M/1M Help Me With Business Development?
Can 1M/1M Help Me With Market Sizing?
Can 1M/1M Help Me Validate My Product?
Will I Have Private 1-on-1 Sessions In 1M/1M?
How Does 1M/1M Help Entrepreneurs Connect With Silicon Valley?
Mentoring or Consulting?
Why Does 1M/1M Charge $1000 a Year?
Why Does 1M/1M Partner With Local Organizations?
Why Don\’t Mentoring Networks Work?
Why Is It Important To Study With 1M/1M Now?
Dan Stewart Story
Vikrant Mathur Story
Can 1M/1M Help Me Raise Money?
How Does 1M/1M Democratize Entrepreneurship Education?
How Does 1M/1M Democratize Management Consulting?
When Is The Right Time To Join 1M/1M?
Can 1M/1M Help Me With Business Development?
Can 1M/1M Help Me With Market Sizing?
Can 1M/1M Help Me Validate My Product?
Will I Have Private 1-on-1 Sessions In 1M/1M?
How Does 1M/1M Help Entrepreneurs Connect With Silicon Valley?
Mentoring or Consulting?
Why Does 1M/1M Charge $1000 a Year?
Why Does 1M/1M Partner With Local Organizations?
Why Don\’t Mentoring Networks Work?
Why Is It Important To Study With 1M/1M Now?
Dan Stewart Story
Vikrant Mathur Story
I’m just curious in terms of bootstrapping, does it make sense more for technical people rather than business people. If you need to build a prototype, at least the technical guy can build it at almost no cost. But if a business guys has an idea and wants to build something, it’s kind of hard to get anyone to build something for free.
No, you build a team, share the equity ownership, and all team-members work either for free, or you do some sort of “project” based work to make payroll.
Hi Sramana,
Philippe Kahn, currently founder/CEO of FullPower.com has not taken a dime of VC money and has been greatly successful in IPO/sale of his previous 3 companies (Borland, Starfish, LightSurf). His current startup too is self-funded.
[…] My very strong recommendation to entrepreneurs is to learn the tricks of bootstrapped entrepreneurship so that they can retain maximum control over their destiny. This recommendation assumes that entrepreneurs would be putting their savings into their ventures. Thus, we need a tax policy that makes it as attractive as possible for entrepreneurs to “invest” in their own ventures, especially at the early stages. [See: “Bootstrap Yourself.”] […]