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Bootstrapping

Bootstrapping is not just about money — it is a mindset of resourcefulness, focus, and speed. These articles cover the strategies and mental models for launching and growing without external funding.

18 articles · 9 videos
September 7, 2024

A Tale of Two Entrepreneurs

Both of them studied at the same university and got good grades, and after graduation, both worked at a high-tech startup where they quickly grew into key roles. After a few years, they both got hi...

September 7, 2024

All Those Who Wander Are Not Lost

Getting to product/market fit (aka the inflection point in the hockey-stick curve when a product's traction starts rapidly growing) is one of the most significant milestones for a startup.

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September 7, 2024

How to Find an Idea Whose Time Has Come

A recent [Bill Gross TED talk](https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gross_the_single_biggest_reason_why_startups_succeed?ref=blog.leanstack.com) where he found timing to be the single most important fact...

September 7, 2024

Scaling Flow in a Startup

Last year, I outlined ten work hacks I use for managing conflicting pulls on my time in a post titled: [“Achieving Flow in a Lean Startup](https://blog.leanstack.com/achieving-flow-in-a-lean-startu...

September 7, 2024

Start With Mindset

Time flies. We’re already at the 10 year anniversary of the Lean Startup. Yes, it was a little over 10 years ago that Eric Ries started sharing a series of blog posts and giving talks on a new way ...

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September 7, 2024

The Different Worldviews of a Startup

In his groundbreaking book, [“All Marketers are Liars Tell Stories](http://www.amazon.com/All-Marketers-Liars-Preface-Works/dp/1591843030),” Seth Godin defines a “worldview” as the set of rules, va...

September 7, 2024

The Entrepreneur with a Thousand Faces

In _“The Hero with a Thousand Faces,”_ Joseph Cambell described a narrative pattern for the archetypical hero’s journey. Every hero story, from Luke Skywalker to Neo, follows this structure.

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September 7, 2024

The Simple Shapes of Startups

Inspired by this short lecture by Kurt Vonnegut on “the simple shapes of stories,” I thought it would be fun to sketch a few shapes of what starting up looks like:

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September 7, 2024

The True Value of Your Time

_Time is our scarcest resource. Resources like money and people can fluctuate up and down, but time only moves in one direction._

September 7, 2024

Vitamins Don't Have a Triggering Event

Were you in the middle of launching a new product or startup when the pandemic hit? Like a lot of entrepreneurs, you probably hit the brakes on your project or put your new ideas on the back-burner...

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May 31, 2024

Raise Your Startup's Odds of Success By Up to 8x

Most founders set Product/Market Fit as their first significant milestone. The problem is that getting to product/market fit typically takes two years (for most products), and 80% of products never...

May 19, 2024

The Just Start Manifesto

While we may look different and speak different languages, the world is flatter than it’s ever been. We are living through a global entrepreneurial renaissance that can be witnessed through the wor...

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May 19, 2024

Start with Premium Before Freemium

The thinking goes that when launching a new product, it’s often a good idea to lower friction by giving away your product for free so you can 1️⃣ Learn from users 2️⃣ Get them to try before ...

May 19, 2024

The Customer Factory Manifesto

All businesses, irrespective of business model type (b2b, b2c, digital, hardware, services, etc.), share a common universal goal: