n 2009 I started Cutler PR at the age of 22, in my bedroom, with only $200. I never took a loan, I never borrowed money and I certainly never raised VC funds. Fast-forward seven years, and today we are a booming tech PR agency with tremendous revenue growth and healthy numbers across the board.
Related: No Money to Start a Business? No Problem. Try These 5 Options.
I credit bootstrapping as one of the primary elements that helped get us here. Here are four benefits of bootstrapping your company:
1. Emphasizes making money, rather than spending itThe fact that bootstrapped companies need a business model that will produce cash immediately forces you to focus on how to make money, rather than how to spend it -- which would be your requisite focus with loans or VC funding. You learn immediately to appreciate your hard-fought-for money and are more inclined to spend every working hour figuring out how to make more of it, not spend it.
“Attracting angel investors or VCs can be a distraction, plus they'll want a piece of you, and bank loans may load you up with debt that can later bury your firm,” writes Verne Harnish, business growth guru and author of Scaling Up.
Bootstrapping also means you don’t have to spend time fund-raising. Endless meetings with potential investors eat up valuable time, time that a CEO could have spent building the business organically.
2. Builds 'scrappy' instincts Read Complete Article