The Bootstrapper's Blog

June 3, 2026 Whether you are a one, two or three person band, when you first start every founder is confronted by the fundamental question from potential clients of who are you? As I said yesterday in the podcast short with successful founder and bootstrapper Jennie Moss https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bootstrapconfidential_as-a-founder-you-are-hands-on-and-have-to-activity-7467455544409247744-wH57?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAF1UkEBCY-a17j1ZdCo5zlZPvZI

May 27, 2026 This is a truly daunting step for every founder but for a bootstrapped one the issue is you’re compounded by a severe lack of funds! Jim Collins in Good to Great states that the important thing is to first get the right people on the bus and then work out where its growing. I would further that and argue that with a startup if you get the right people on the bus to begin with then the direction you need to will become self-evident- either way talent is key. Ever

May 19, 2026 I blogged in early April that I was about to race in a yacht from Qingdao in North East China across the Pacific ocean in mid-winter to Seattle USA. The idea was that instead of always blogging and podcasting about how founders need to take themselves out of their comfort zone, go on a vertical learning curve and develop endless mental resilience and overcome constant exhaustion, I should put my money where my mouth is and do it myself. So, what happened and wh

April 1, 2026 An important lesson for any bootstrapper: take your ego, put it in a suitcase, and hide it in the attic for the next decade. It has no place in a start-up and will only cause problems. Egos and bootstrapped start-ups go together like oil and water. There are also other, equally creative ways to overcome these misperceptions. We first opened our London office in 2009 by accident. I had gone to the UK for Christmas to take my young family—Ania and the twins—to mee

I’ve lost count of the times and the number of people who have told me that you just can’t keep growing at 50% year-on-year. I was told this in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and every year since. The funny thing is that for ten consecutive years we managed to do it, mainly because I set it as our target. It’s amazing, but once the conversation at the start of each year focuses on, “How do we grow by 50%?” it doesn’t take long for enough ideas to be generated to give you a good idea

W When you first start up, focus on small players as clients. They tend to have less budget and fewer resources, but they are more in need of a solution. They have more problems that they need help with. If big companies have a need and you can offer a customised solution, then they are likely to tie you up so that you are completely bespoke for them. Smaller companies are less fussy. They will usually be happy if you share your solution with others, on the grounds that you’r

The key differences between investor led and bootstrapping As a passionate bootstrapper it’s tempting to write about why you should bootstrap as opposed to seek investment. However, what I think is much more useful is to look at the differences required in the actual approach to building. A lot of what you are told as a founder at VC sponsored conferences or investor funded accelerators is not what you need to be thinking about as a bootstrapper. So, what are the key differ

What founders can learn from Roger Federer I n my recent podcast I asked Helen Tanner , CEO and funder of Data Cubed, https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bootstrapconfidential_bootstrap-confidential-episode-18-helen-activity-7429780738977452033-FV_Y?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAF1UkEBCY-a17j1ZdCo5zlZPvZI1z0Bcbk , what lesson she wished she had known back when she started and she replied that she wished she'd known that getting right 51% of the time w

Forget wellness or yoga- learn from the special forces Mental wellness is a huge topic these days and it should not be ignored but the brutal truth is that it has little place in a startup. Startups are incredibly hard- you are literally trying to will something into existence which the world might not want and which might not make you even enough money to live on. You are dealing with constant rejection, exhausting hours, punishing levels of decision making, lack of funds

Founders need to be obsessed with curiosity Curiosity should be every founder’s obsession Last week when I spoke to Piers Bearne , founder of Collingwood , on the Bootstrap Confidential podcast https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7424386451624202243 and asked him what single trait he most looked for in an entrepreneur, he immediately answered curiosity. Every single founder I speak to or interview cites curiosity as the no. 1 characteristic that they