Bootstrapping
People often feel like they have to move away from obscurity in their new business as quickly as possible. While obscurity can equal less exposure to potential customers at the outset, starting out small and without a massive audience is perfect because it enables you to gain experience and play with your business ideas.
Paul Jarvis • Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business
Bootstrapped businesses have a huge advantage of being customer-focused out of necessity, but at the same time their growth comes from what they pull in—and a growing business is a hungry business. So much of the early stage resources are put into the day-to-day hustle that there’s rarely any left over for strategic investments in the people,
... See moreCharlie Gilkey • The Small Business Life Cycle: The No-Fluff Guide to Navigating the Five Stages of Small Business Growth
Unlike many founders who hit on something that’s working then rush to raise funding to scale, Balsamiq has chosen to take a more measured approach- consistently growing revenue and profits year of over year. Each year Peldi takes $1M out personally, socks away 18mo of runway for a rainy day, and pays out 15% of profits to Balsamiq’s 25 employees... See more
The Technium: 1,000 True Fans
Our “small giants” approach optimized for mojo over growth. We wanted a small, talent-dense team with a focus on craft, autonomy, and quality of life for all team members. We banished the term “founder” in favor of “partner” and tried to be transparent with all business matters across the team.
We took some capital from investors in order to invest... See more
We took some capital from investors in order to invest... See more
Muse Retrospective
Each year Peldi takes out $1 million personally, keeps an eighteen-month runway in the company (in case anything bad happens), and pays out the remainder to his twenty-five-employee team (which grows by only two to three people per year).
Paul Jarvis • Company of One: Why Staying Small is the Next Big Thing for Business
Founder of Balsamiq
The most important question for me is, "How do I want to spend my days?" And the answer is: I want to spend my time thinking, creating, and ideating with a small group of people to build a beautiful, creative, values-aligned business. I am not interested in 14-hour work days, back-to-back meetings that deplete my energy, can’t catch a breath to-do... See more
Sari Azout • Sari Azout on Building Emotional Capital
the question of what kind of company you want to build is as urgent and personal as it ever was. People will always struggle with it. The old models of “venture-backed” and “bootstrapped” both feel inadequate to me.