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How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

thestartup.eu

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Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#21

Post by stefanobernardi »

ahoyhere wrote: post #12
brianmwang wrote: post #10

One of the things that always bothers me about the "How to build and launch a product with <$X" articles is the fact that they almost always talk about the costs of outsourcing design/development but almost never talk about the actual costs of living for founders. You know what I'd love to see? Articles about how a couple of scrappy founders cut their living costs to the bone, keep the majority of development in-hous…

Why wait for articles to be written? Why not do it yourself? We built http://letsfreckle.com for "free" -- did all the work ourselves, while consulting. If you're really passionate, you'll find a way. Sure, it would have been nice to have foregone the "while consulting" part, and done nothing but focus on our product all day long... but nobody was handing us a free lunch. So we did it, the way we could do it, without…

Wow, congrats. It's a really cool product and the UI is amazing. Till what point did you work on it part time and when did you decide to take it full time (I'm assuming you did given the polish of the app).

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#22

Post by brianmwang »

ahoyhere wrote: post #12
brianmwang wrote: post #10

One of the things that always bothers me about the "How to build and launch a product with <$X" articles is the fact that they almost always talk about the costs of outsourcing design/development but almost never talk about the actual costs of living for founders. You know what I'd love to see? Articles about how a couple of scrappy founders cut their living costs to the bone, keep the majority of development in-hous…

Why wait for articles to be written? Why not do it yourself? We built http://letsfreckle.com for "free" -- did all the work ourselves, while consulting. If you're really passionate, you'll find a way. Sure, it would have been nice to have foregone the "while consulting" part, and done nothing but focus on our product all day long... but nobody was handing us a free lunch. So we did it, the way we could do it, without…

Asking "why wait for articles" is like saying why use tutorials or guides for anything at all? Why not just learn it all by doing it yourself? Besides, I think there's a bit of a strawman here. I'm not saying I'd like to avoid consulting to pay the bills.

There is a lot of value in learning from other people's experiences. Spencer Fry has a fantastic article on the topic of bootstrapping in general(http://spencerfry.com/how-to-bootstrap) but I'd really love to see somebody get down to the nitty gritty financial details of dollars in vs. dollars out - the holy crap, how are we going to pay rent in 2 months? stuff - in the stages of a startup that hasn't yet reached ramen profitability.

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#23

Post by saikat »

daveungerer wrote: post #19

Wait a second... we'll have to find a new word for the concept currently known as bootstrapping, because articles like these make the word completely meaningless. Bootstrapping means creating a self-sustaining business. At a minimum, this means you have revenue to cover your running costs. You can only say "bootstrap with less than $10K" if that 10K gives your business enough revenue to cover its running costs. Yet t…

Yeah, according to the metric used by this article, I've been bootstrapping my startup for under $1k over the past 8 months. And I don't find what I'm doing to be all that incredible.

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#24

Post by ahk »

Newbie question: the thing that always puzzles me is where these folks get their data from (in this case the list of restaurants with details). Anybody know how one can go about getting their hands on stuff like that? Is it all available for free on some site I just haven't heard of yet?

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#25

Post by saikat »

stefanobernardi wrote: post #9
nroach wrote: post #7

Great job of getting to MVP on the cheap! But it seems like a budget of $10K or so would only work for relatively simple apps. Doing something like Dropbox, 280Atlas, or FlightCaster (probably) would take significantly more money. Any suggestions for how you'd proceed if you knew up front that you were facing a much longer development cycle?

I'm not the founder, but IMHO such a project can not be developed on your spare time. I guess the process that Marco used can be replicated for simple freemium saas web apps and mobile applications. 280North and Dropbox are developing brand new and break-trough technology; they need a full team of experienced hackers, loads of money and a grand vision to realize that. Of course the payoff is different..

280North at least develops all their technology in-house (and it's only 3 hackers). I bet most of their costs are living expenses for the founders.

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#26

Post by jasonlotito »

ahoyhere wrote: post #20
pclark wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is http://letsfreckle.com your full time career now?

No, but I did quit consulting in January to focus exclusively on products. I am all about doing multiple things and having multiple revenue streams. That said, Freckle will be earning enough to live on comfortably in the next 2-3 mos though, based on my forecasts. :) We are rolling a significant amount of that money back into promotion, and hiring help.

So, that makes me wonder: Since January, what have you been doing to earn money? How are you funding yourself? Paying for rent, food, internet connectivity? Did you save money? Borrow? Family? Have other means of incoming rolling in? You mention doing multiple things. What are these other things? It conflicts with the message you send when you say "focus exclusively on products."

I think those are the questions some people would like answered. Not because we are challenging you, but to understand the reality.

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#27

Post by ahoyhere »

brianmwang wrote: post #22
ahoyhere wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wait for articles to be written? Why not do it yourself? We built http://letsfreckle.com for "free" -- did all the work ourselves, while consulting. If you're really passionate, you'll find a way. Sure, it would have been nice to have foregone the "while consulting" part, and done nothing but focus on our product all day long... but nobody was handing us a free lunch. So we did it, the way we could do it, without…

Asking "why wait for articles" is like saying why use tutorials or guides for anything at all? Why not just learn it all by doing it yourself? Besides, I think there's a bit of a strawman here. I'm not saying I'd like to avoid consulting to pay the bills. There is a lot of value in learning from other people's experiences. Spencer Fry has a fantastic article on the topic of bootstrapping in general( http://spencerfry…

I'm not saying that "reading articles" and "doing it yourself" are opposed at all. I read a ridiculous amount about other people's experiences... including old business books, 10, 15, 50 years old, because the principles are still the same, and their experiences are still valid.

But, when it comes down to it... how do you handle a startup before it's profitable? Simple: the same way you'd handle unemployment, a sabbatical, taking time off to take care of a baby, or whatever else you'd want to do that would drastically limit (or entirely eliminate) your income.

You create a budget, you decide how long you plan to live without income, you figure out a way to come up with the product of Your Budget x Months Without Income.

Information and advice on budgeting for any type of time-without-income will do the trick for you, if you need more guidance. Startups aren't special.

What good would it help you to know how much my rent is?

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#28

Post by ahoyhere »

jasonlotito wrote: post #26
ahoyhere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but I did quit consulting in January to focus exclusively on products. I am all about doing multiple things and having multiple revenue streams. That said, Freckle will be earning enough to live on comfortably in the next 2-3 mos though, based on my forecasts. :) We are rolling a significant amount of that money back into promotion, and hiring help.

So, that makes me wonder: Since January, what have you been doing to earn money? How are you funding yourself? Paying for rent, food, internet connectivity? Did you save money? Borrow? Family? Have other means of incoming rolling in? You mention doing multiple things. What are these other things? It conflicts with the message you send when you say "focus exclusively on products." I think those are the questions some…

None of what I said conflicts with "focusing exclusively on products," but since you want more background information, here it is.

How did we keep a roof over our heads? The old fashioned way: working our asses off, saving, and with the cultivation of multiple income streams, as I mentioned above.

1. We did some consulting projects that we wouldn't have otherwise taken on, and saved the money. We raised our rates for a couple of these clients dramatically, because they absolutely required us, and the projects had tremendous time pressure.

2. My husband and I wrote and sell an ebook: http://jsrocks.com

3. We also developed a 1-day and 2-day variant of a JavaScript workshop, with a different angle than all others, and have given it twice times to individuals (selling tickets) and twice to corporations in 2010. We originally developed this course in Sept 09, and we've heavily revised and expanded it, but it's the same "product" we're taking around the world. Just like with the consulting, we saved the money. http://jsmasterclass.com

4. I'm teaching a course on how to bootstrap your first product to earn your first $1000 - http://yearofhustle.com. It's a 12-week course and the first round is just about over now. I tested the idea by doing a 3-hour teleconference call and selling tickets for $100 to start with, and the main feedback customers gave me was "MORE!" Then I... you guessed it... saved the money. (This one is just me and a friend, not with my husband.)

If things got bad, I would take on more consulting work, bust ass, and save again. Although I don't think I'll ever have to do that again, given the success of my or our various infoproducts/classes/training courses.

It's simple: I refuse to do anything but bootstrap. I will never take a penny in venture capital. I will never let the outside demands of another person screw with my career again.

I am also fully committed to doing whatever it takes to succeed, and that means being my own angel.

So when I decided those things, I sat my ass down and did my best to figure out how I could get money, fast, and with the least amount of effort.

I certainly won't fail because I believe, on some level, that there is something so special about me that I deserve to be able to work on just one thing and have my bills taken care of.

Enough information for you?

EDIT: By the way -- yes, I'm not doing it alone (and my husband is no slacker in the code department), but it's my grand plan. And, more importantly, this process is accelerating, because we're using the money earned/saved to pay a freelancer to help us develop our 2nd SaaS product, which will launch in September.

EDIT AGAIN: We launched Freckle in Dec 2008, by the way. We/I wrote the book in 2008/2009 (started selling as a beta in Jan 2009). We developed the course in Sept 09. All while heavily consulting.

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#29

Post by jasonlotito »

ahoyhere wrote: post #28
jasonlotito wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, that makes me wonder: Since January, what have you been doing to earn money? How are you funding yourself? Paying for rent, food, internet connectivity? Did you save money? Borrow? Family? Have other means of incoming rolling in? You mention doing multiple things. What are these other things? It conflicts with the message you send when you say "focus exclusively on products." I think those are the questions some…

None of what I said conflicts with "focusing exclusively on products," but since you want more background information, here it is. How did we keep a roof over our heads? The old fashioned way: working our asses off, saving, and with the cultivation of multiple income streams, as I mentioned above. 1. We did some consulting projects that we wouldn't have otherwise taken on, and saved the money. We raised our rates for…

> None of what I said conflicts with "focusing exclusively on products,"

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that. What I meant to say is that it seems to conflict, or wasn't clear. I wasn't questioning what you were saying, I was just curious and wanted you to expand. Sorry if it came off as confrontational.

> Enough information for you?

I assumed, correctly, that what you did was a bit more than just what your short post made it out to be. You hustled, and you work hard. It's interesting to see how some people do it.

And yes. All this information is actually useful. It's encouraging to hear success stories.

Honestly, information like this is incredibly useful and at the very least, encouraging. =)

Edit: I get the sense that I might have offended you in some way. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive, but I'd rather just say that wasn't my intent. Again, I wasn't questioning you. I was just asking honest questions. Being curious. No offense was intended.

Re: How to bootstrap a Startup with less than $10k. Meet Tipsandtrip.

#30

Post by ahoyhere »

stefanobernardi wrote: post #21
ahoyhere wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wait for articles to be written? Why not do it yourself? We built http://letsfreckle.com for "free" -- did all the work ourselves, while consulting. If you're really passionate, you'll find a way. Sure, it would have been nice to have foregone the "while consulting" part, and done nothing but focus on our product all day long... but nobody was handing us a free lunch. So we did it, the way we could do it, without…

Wow, congrats. It's a really cool product and the UI is amazing. Till what point did you work on it part time and when did you decide to take it full time (I'm assuming you did given the polish of the app).

Thanks, glad you like it! We're still not full-time on it. To put it a little bluntly, the polish comes from my hard-won experience as an interaction designer, and a partner who is willing to make the "hard shit" work just right.
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