Thats right. Forget to think big. You are bootstrapping your business after-all, so remove the thoughts of external funding, and high dollar loans. You don’t need them in order to succeed! Toss out that whole “THINK BIG” idea for a while, and focus on the fundamentals of your business and the core structure that is going to fuel your success.
Bootstrapping your business is about getting into the mud and doing whatever possible to get your business off the ground with as little money as possible. The best way to do this is forget the idea’s and thoughts you have about being the biggest company in the world, and overturning Bill Gates by becoming the richest man in America. It is fine to believe you can get to that point, but starting your business by focusing solely on that, you will lose track of the smaller things that are the building blocks of your business by only looking at the bigger picture.
When starting your business, or putting together a product, do not aim for the most features, or the most inventory, but aim for getting your name out there, and making sure you even have something that people want. The WANT has to be there in order for your business to succeed, or you have to have the power to make people BELIEVE THEY WANT AND NEED your product / service. Starting small will also give you more time to work on other aspects of your business like customer service, which is key in any successful business.
Thinking Big in the beginning will just leave you overanalizing the smallest details, that really, do not even need to be worried about until later. Get your product or service running, and get feedback from your clients. The feedback from them will give you all of the things you need to work on in the future. Rely on their feedback, because after-all, if you like your product and the customers don’t, you have a crappy product.
When starting bootstrapping blog, we looked over some of the other bootstrapping sites out there, and realized that the need for a central hub of quality information on bootstrapping your business was needed. Being a bootstrapper myself, I knew that spending 2-3 hours a day reading 4-5 different websites trying to find 1-2 good pieces of information was cutting into my work hours, and my bottom line with my businesses. So, by knowing what was needed, we started Bootstrapping Blog to help give that great information and tips and tools. We also did not start it to be the #1 bootstrapping website on the internet, but hey, in time, you never know.
We will stick to the core values we began with, and that is:
- Think small
- Close your mouth
- Open your ears
- Get out there
Happy bootstrapping everyone!
re. “forget to think big” not quite agree , because im seeking external funding, because I don’t see bootstrapping as having to use only your bank account
i think of it as “booting” the computer, to get started, with minimal footprint
the diff bet. ‘”start a company” small’ and ‘start “a small company”‘
i think anyone can bootstrap a global company
just need to put your mind to a global idea
the worst situation you want to be in is running short on funds when your idea is halfway up the ridge
Bummer Han
han@bummerware.com
Hi Bummer Han, thanks for the comment.
I think you misunderstood the article. I don’t mean to never dream big and expect your company to always stay small. We all are aiming to have a big company that is global. I wrote the article in the sense that most people go to start a company and automatically put into their minds ‘we need to be bigger than Bill Gates or Oprah’ and that will only detour you from getting your product out there and in the hands of people. When you have $$$ in your eyes, people tend to overlook key aspects of their business and end up failing.