Report and Analysis from 107 Bootstrapped Startups
Published in 2011, this chronicle by @moses1400 details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE 14 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 3 comments
Maybe I'm a little mixed up, but OP and I must have very different definitions of "bootstrapping". I am really confused by 3 of his graphs.
Support for start-ups
``` 1. Savings - 33% 2. Savings + Consulting - 41% 3. Consulting - 15% 4. Angel Investment - 5% 5. Friends & Family - 15%
``` Category 1 sounds like they're true bootstrappers. Categories 2 and 3 sound suspiciously like service businesses and side projects. Categories 4 and 5 are not bootstrapped.
I define a start-up as having about 6 different stages I define them as follows:
``` 1. Early Stage Concept - 7% 2. Developing Prototype - 32% 3. Pitching - 13% 4. Finish Prototype - 15% 5. Start Selling - 29% 6. Scale Up - 8%
``` Why isn't "Start Selling" first? Better yet, why isn't "Find Out What People Want and Will Pay For" first? Why are so many people building stuff that may not even be wanted?
Why not:
``` 1. Find Out What People Want 2. Show Them a Prototype 3. Collect Deposits 4. Build It 5. Find Other Instances of Those People and Convert Them
``` What is holding you back?
``` 1. Prototype not ready - 28% 2. Prototype needs to change - 9% 3. Can't find customers - 9% 4. Not enough time (consulting) - 12% 5. Need cash injection to scale up - 37% ``` It sounds like most of the companies either (a) haven't sold anything or (b) haven't sold enough to keep bootstrapping. Are these start-ups or are these side projects?
I wonder how many of the 107 companies raised the same questions I did. That's something I'd really like to know.
hey guys..
yep, this is anonymous survey
I created different options for bootstrapping to see the participants behavior, remember this is a general survey to see general responses
everyones approaches are different, the order is different depending on the person
It would have been nice to seen which startups were surveyed. I don't need to know there answers, but it's great to know who else is trying to make this work.