3 things I learnt while bootstrapping my startup

Don’t settle for mediocrity, trust your ability to learn, and distort reality through confidence.

First, a short story: A week ago, there was a popular thread on Hackernews - What are you working on and why is it cool?

I posted a comment with a link to my startup’s demo — a video of my product, made for my soon-to-launch crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter. It quickly slid down the list but even so, the reaction I got completely blew me away. Between Saturday (the day it was posted) and Sunday, I got:

637 unique visitors, 311 plays of the video, 121 signups for pre-order

I was pleasantly surprised by the metrics (particularly the conversion rate for pre-order signups) because all this came from a single comment that was way down the list. Given that I was launching in a week, the validation was huge.

What made it more significant was the fact that 2 months ago, I posted a video of the same project on Hackernews that got zero votes and one comment, which (along with other feedback of course) propelled me to re-create my marketing message and make an entirely new project video.

Looking back and connecting the dots, it made me realize a few things I unintentionally trained myself to do, leading to the successful launch of my startup. Being aware of these makes me a better builder and if you’re building something I hope it helps you in some way as well.

1. Don’t settle for something you’re not feeling 95% about, even if you’re out of runway and need to change plans.

Your work is a reflection of yourself. As the founder, you’ve thought about your business more than anyone else has and so, when it comes to launching something, if you are not feeling great about it then don’t do it. Launching can have different meanings depending on what you’re doing and what stage you’re at; and ‘feeling great’ is also relative, but my point is to take a step back if your gut feeling tells you to.

I’m working on a men’s activewear brand and chose to crowd-fund the production of our first product through Kickstarter. After successfully creating a product I felt great about, I hired a professional to make the project video (which is the key to a successful crowd-funding campaign). I was to launch soon after the video was made but the feedback from my test users was dissatisfactory — it wasn’t bad, it simply wasn’t good enough and didn’t do justice to the product itself. Having already quit my job and invested most of my savings behind this brand, I was tempted to just go with it and see what happens but my gut feeling told me otherwise. I scrapped the video and delayed the launch. How I would make a new video was yet to be figured out but it brings me to my next point.

2. When you don’t have resources, don’t neglect an invaluable resource you do have — your ability to learn.

There are many small and large tasks that go into building something. You will not always have the necessary skills to develop everything and you have to make strategic investments to get stuff done; but often times, we forget how capable of a machine we are. When you don’t have the resource, you can do some learning, apply a bit of logic, and grasp a basic understanding of almost any subject. If you need to make a website, learn some code and take a stab at it yourself; if you need graphics or photographs, give making them a shot and see where it takes you. We are naturally scared of the unknown…don’t be. Giving it a shot is half the battle and once you do, you’ll be amazed by the results. When you’re a small startup, your biggest advantage of doing things internally is the flexibility over your work, which is key because you have to constantly keep changing and experimenting with new ideas to see what works.

So, going back to that video I scrapped, you’ve probably guessed that I decided to take a stab at creating the new one myself. That’s exactly what I did. I wrote a brand new script using lots of feedback, convinced a friend with a camera to help with filming, downloaded Final Cut Pro Trial, and gave it a shot. This gave us flexibility which meant we filmed, edited, showed it around, got feedback, kept what worked, changed what didn’t, and repeated the process. After one month, we created something great — it was 95% there. And it wasn’t just the video I took a stab at, because over the past 10 months, I learned about manufacturing, designing, coding, law, and a good amount of people strategies…I should also mention that I had a full time job for 6 out of the 10 months so not having enough time shouldn’t be a deterrent either— I learned that you have much more time at hand than you think you do.

3. Train yourself to distort your own reality through confidence.

If you’re a single founder (or a small team) bootstrapping your business, you will have to tackle many obstacles, all by yourself. Some obstacles are predictable but the difficult ones are those you won’t foresee coming…and when they do come, you’ll think about the situation and realize how you are just one man with nothing more than a big dream. You’ll feel drowned and start to see the difficulties ahead of you. Logically, the chances of success are dwarfed by that of failure and taking risks does not seem like the most rational choice. In those moments, you’ll feel like letting go. But if you can pull through and focus on your vision and the very dream instead of barriers that lay ahead, you can really blast through them and get to where you need to be. But how do you do that? Train yourself to constantly think about how you are capable and powerful, how you have what it takes, and how you can be victorious when you want to be. I look at it as distorting your own reality. It’s a very powerful tool that comes with a level of confidence that’s almost arrogant — a very different kind of arrogance though, because you keep it to yourself and use it to become motivated and driven. On the outside — stay calm, be humble, and don’t let others’ disbelief in your dreams affect you in any way.

My Kickstarter campaign is live. It would mean the world to me if you check it out. If you like it, please share with a friend.