The Tension Between Bootstrapping and Grandstanding

“Do you have any questions?”

I asked knowing that he would likely be full of them.  He’s the CEO of a successful higher education start-up – he’s done all of this before.  I was nervous as I coordinated this meeting in the first place, not knowing if it was the right time to consult with an established entrepreneur in this field.  I had given him all of our updates, including steps we have taken over the past six months to prepare for where we are today.  He probably has tons of questions…maybe I shared too much at once?

“Actually I only have one question right now.”

Crap.  One question?  Are we that dull that our lifetime of existence as a company arouses a singular thought?  How bad will this sting?  I bet he’ll ask why we are even bothering to pursue this.

“How many customers do you currently have?”

Customers?  We don’t even have a website yet.  How can he ask us that?  I cannot credibly walk into a company’s office without any established system and expect credibility.  Did he expect that of us?

“We don’t have any.  We’re working to get the platf—“

“Alright, well that’s where you need to start.  Customers.  Stop everything else and focus there.”

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

I learned a valuable lesson in bootstrapping that day.  I had earned a coveted time slot with the CEO of a successful higher education start-up, only to hear that all of our progress, meetings and development until now meant squat without some measure of customer interest.

The CEO rattled off ideas for testing our service as one might recite the alphabet.  Survey your classmates, ask for specific skill sets, find a champion at your school to assist in the development, give your service away for free at first…and on and on.  While I was relieved to have a new direction in which to move, I felt incredibly inadequate for not taking any of these steps earlier.

This week’s reading on bootstrapping was exactly what I was being taught in that meeting.  I had a grand vision for how a clean roll-out of our service would occur.  The website would look professional, the internal systems would all be in place, and our staff would be robust and ready for the response. 

And then pigs would fly, or so I was told.

The work of an entrepreneur is far from glamorous.  It is said that Jeff Bezos started Amazon in the lavish confines of…his garage.  He didn’t make a dollar of profit for six years.  How did I not anticipate my venture would start in a similar, gritty fashion?

My suspicion is that for as much as young entrepreneurs are expected to be scrappy, the availability of investors and angel dollars means that a veneer of professional stability seemingly needs to be maintained as well.  You don’t really know who might be interested in your business, so you might try and convey an image of sophistication, rationality and constancy.

By the end of that meeting, I was convinced that I would be better at promoting and selling my business if I could forget about most of that polished impression I was trying to create.  In reality, angels tend to like the ugliness of starting a business – it means you want something so bad that no amount of money, staffing or setbacks can keep you from making your business work.

Are you seeking to create an impression of your business that is antithetical to your progress?

Source:

“The Art of Bootstrapping” (Kawasaki, January 2006) at:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/01/the_art_of_boot.html#axzz19dBNaSsa