Bootstrapping

Quick Funny Disruptive Game Changing Paradigm Shift Video

May 22, 2012

In my post here yesterday I questioned the value of the phrases “game changing” and “disruptive” for what every startup promises investors and few really offer. Right after posting I caught Sramana Mitra’s fun video cartoon here, a quick riff on the similar phrase “paradigm shift.” Aside from the fun video, I’ve mentioned Sramana before [...]

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Can’t Get Funded? Maybe There Are Better Ways

March 7, 2012

Today I joined Ian Sigalow, Jim Estill, and Mike Edelhart on a free webinar titled “Revolution in Venture Funding.” If you’re interested, here is the link to the permanent archive: http://myventurepad.com/93875/audio-archive-revolution-venture-funding. The sizzle in this one is the idea of crowd funding: specifically, there’s a bill in congress that would loosen up restrictions on small-time [...]

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Blaming Angels and VCs for Choosing is Like Blaming Up for Down

February 2, 2012

I was happily reading Sramana Mitrea’s The Other 99% of Entrepreneurs on Read/Write Web, agreeing with every detail, when I ran into a snag. It’s in italics in this quote from Sramana’s post. Over 99% of entrepreneurs who seek funding get rejected. Yet, the entire world is focused on the 1% that is “fundable.” The media, [...]

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Reflection: 10 Lessons Learned in 22 Years of Successful Bootstrapping

December 28, 2011

(I posted this about two years ago on Small Business Trends. I’m reposting it here today because this is a good time of year for this kind of reflection. And maybe also for not writing a new post. Tim ) Last week a group of students interviewed me, as part of a class project, looking for [...]

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Is All Good Business Inherently Social Enterprise?

September 2, 2011

I liked the phrase social entrepreneurship instantly when I first heard it. It’s doing well by doing good, I assumed, building businesses that help people. A business doesn’t have to not make a profit to do good, so the idea of social entrepreneurship makes sense. Teach kids to read, help people stay healthy, clean the [...]

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Are You Planning to Sell Boxes or Hours?

April 29, 2011

All of these are just “in general” points. There will always be exceptions. But still, it’s good to understand the huge difference between service businesses and product business. Selling hours has advantages, but selling boxes does too. And there are huge differences, things I think you need to understand. My wife and I spent several [...]

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True Story of Business Disaster With a Compensation Plan Lesson

February 11, 2011

This is a true story. Names aren’t included for obvious reasons. Don’t ask. Once upon a time a product-obsessed software entrepreneur who didn’t like sales hired a sales-oriented entrepreneur who liked selling software. It seemed like a match made in heaven, as they say. Both of them could focus on what they liked doing. The [...]

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The Paradox of Location vs. Technology

November 15, 2010

Did you see this piece over the weekend? In Start-Ups Follow Twitter, and Become Neighbors the New York Times presents several San Francisco companies (including klout.com, my personal favorite) that purposely located offices near Twitter for good business reasons. Steve King called it The Real Magic Comes from Being in the Same Place in his [...]

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True Story: Do Entrepreneurs Like Risk?

September 3, 2010

The answer to that question is: no. Not any more than the next person. They just like their business better. They took risks because they saw the goal. It was the dark side of building the company. They had to. But when it comes to savings and investment, no. Well, actually, the most correct answer [...]

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Business Plan Contests Leave Out Bootstrappers

July 6, 2010

I consider myself something of an expert on business plan competitions. I ran one myself for several years, I’ve judged several dozen including several of the most prestigious, my company sponsors more than a dozen a year, I’ve had students in my undergrad business classes competing in them, I’m an investor member of an angel [...]

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