Lessons Learned From Bootstrapping

photo credit: Damon | Photography

Tim Berry recently participated in a student interview asking him about his and his wifes success in business, their secrets and the lessons that they learned throughout their 22 year’s of experience in bootstrapping. Although he felt that his answers were not as good as they could have been, he does have a few lessons learned from bootstrapping which are listed below.

•        They built their business around themselves. Their business reflects who they are and the things they like to do, which every business should reflect it’s owners.
•        They offered something that the public wanted. This is a big contributor to the level of success that your business will have, depending on the need and want of your product or service.
•        They used their own money rather than spending money that they didn’t already have such as obtaining loans, or borrowing from friends and family.

We hired people slowly and carefully. We did everything ourselves in the beginning, then hired people to take tasks off of our plate. We hired a bookkeeper who gave us back the time we spent bookkeeping. A technical support person gave us back the time we spent on the phone explaining software products to customers.