Bootstrapping means building your business one customer and contract at a time.  It’s the sweat equity an entrepreneur used to prove her case before the days of the Internet bubble when getting venture capital seemed to become so easy.  Now, with investors tightening their grips and doing even more due diligence, bootstrapping is all but de rigueur again, whether in place of or in preparation for outside funding.  Even during the silly season, however, some entrepreneurs foreswore the easy money and chose the bootstrap route for their own reasons.  They explained their experiences at this Netpreneur Coffee & DoughNets meeting held April 26, 2001, joined by veteran bootstrapper Mario Morino who explained that the process really hasn’t changed very much at all.

Copyright 2002 Morino Institute. All rights reserved. Edited for length and clarity.

Copyright © 2002 Morino Institute. All rights reserved.