Bootstrap Hero Manifesto

What does a Bootstrap Hero look like? Our hero may be your local organic farmer, the family print shop or Reo the barber, who still charges $8.00 a haircut after all these years. The restaurateur that buys locally and remembers your name. Some of the larger business folks out there got their start as bootstrappers, and have been sweet enough to stay true to their roots.

As defined here, the Bootstrap Hero is a startup, business or community entity that uses sweat equity to make a good, clean living that might actually benefit some other folks in the process.

Bootstrapping has roots in legend. The recent microfinance title, “A Billion Bootstraps,” mentions an eccentric German Baron who is said to have pulled himself out of the sea by his own bootstraps.

In more technical terms, bootstrapping is “a collection of methods used to minimize the amount of outside debt and equity financing needed from banks and investors” (Ebben and Johnsen, 2006:853).

Do-it-yourself, raise the bar, tow the line, MAKE IT HAPPEN.

While we’re at it, why not include seventh generation thinking? Profits with principles.

While not excluding some of the bigger fish that might qualify as bootstrappers, it is the intention here to specifically include the small fish. Last year I had the opportunity to participate in an economic development conference as one of two business guinea pigs. Each of us was instructed to present our business in front of a roomful of economic development advisers. The presentation was directed as simply, “present your business and the one major issue that you have in the stage where you are at.”

In my case I had an extremely small business, was completely new to anything from a business plan to a balance sheet. I had also managed, in the first 10 months of establishing White Heron TEA, to gain organic certification, Fair Trade certification, health department approval, board of adjustment approval for a zoning issue, our first tea import, and had created a small niche brand that was already placed in about 25 stores.

After making a short presentation, we were then instructed to keep quiet while receiving feedback from the audience. Some comments were brutally direct, suggesting that if I didn’t have a board of directors that I would fail. Or…..if I showed up at their office and had presented myself the same way, that I would be sent back home to do my homework.

Tough audience. At the very end, one gentleman was kind enough to remark, “Hey….shouldn’t we be encouraging guys like this? Everyone gets a start somewhere and clearly his passion shows that he is willing to learn what he needs to in order to build a strong and viable business. ” Manna from heaven………

Since that day I have taken a particular interest in fellow small entrepreneurs that would rarely show up as a blip on the radar in such an environment. Should a single self-employed farmer have a board of directors? Are they not an important part of the business community? What about the artist who sells at craft shows and has managed to make a good living for the last 15 years? Us small business folk need to stick together. Despite having gained advice from a wide variety of professionals, some of the most practical guidance I have received has been from other indie entrepreneurs.

Bootstrap Hero is intended to be a collection of business/community building thoughts and ideas geared towards the brave women and men who have decided to forge a startup. Beyond my own voice and perspective, BH is made up of ideas read, heard, given, discovered and imagined. As often as possible, sources of wisdom are accounted for.

Bootstrap Hero is a log of notes and quotes, links, book recommendations and reviews, Yankee wisdom and “make the best with what you’ve got.”

Got lemons? Make lemonade. What you’ve got is more important that what you haven’t. If it’s been done, then it is possible.

” Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. If you feel you should not follow it you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront to oneself or to others in dropping it, if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately.”

Carlos Castaneda ~ from The Teachings of Don Juan : A Yaqui Way of Knowledge

Go forth and prosper.

JB