Reboot: Guy Kawasaki on Bootstrapping

Guy Kawasaki has done it all in his career. He's been a Mac evangelist (and later an Apple Fellow), founded or co-founded three startups (ACIUS, Fog City Software, and Alltop), and manages his own early-stage VC fund. If that weren't enough to hang his hat on, he's also a celebrated speaker and author with nine titles to his credit, including the best-selling The Art of the Start. In 2006, he posted this essay on bootstrapping on his blog, which contains some wonderful advice for anyone involved in a startup, including some interesting contrarian ideas on what it takes to be successful.

What's a "Reboot," Anyway?

Whenever I come across a new article or blog post that I find noteworthy, I'll link to it of course. However, there are important resources on entrepreneurship that have been online for several years that many readers may be unfamiliar with. I occasionally resurface these classics in a series of posts I call "reboots."

You should consider a "reboot" to be a major thumbs up from me and essential reading for anyone serious about entrepreneurship. For your convenience, I've tagged all of these posts so that you can quickly find an index of them. You may want to bookmark the reboot page as a handy reference.

Reboot: Greg Gianforte on Bootstrapping

Greg Gianforte is a bootstrapper par excellence. He founded and successfully bootstrapped two companies. The first, Brightwork, was eventually sold to McAfee for $10 million. He later bootstrapped his second startup, RightNow, and took it public in 2004. RightNow has become a leading CRM vendor with annual sales of over $50 million. Gianforte's 2005 essay on bootstrapping is an enduring classic and a must read for entrepreneurs.

Reboot: Seth Godin's Bootstrapper's Bible

Seth Godin's bootstrapping manifesto is once again available for download (and it's free). It's been around awhile, but The Bootstrapper's Bible is such a great introduction to the subject, I wanted to make sure everyone who reads this blog knows about it. I'll post a more thorough review and summary later. In the meantime, go get it. Enjoy!