Startup Hack: A Bootstrapper’s Toolkit
Building a company IS HARD. Building a company in the midwest with little to no financial resources makes the process even more challenging. However, I’m here to tell you that it’s not impossible!
Here’s a short list of tools and examples that have enabled me to grow AppyHour to over 11,000 users in a few months with $0 spent on post-launch marketing.
1. Social Media — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube
This one may seem obvious but many entrepreneurs are slow to take advantage of social platforms. Why? Social media strategies can be daunting, time consuming, and slow to yield the fast results that startups are seeking. However, there is no better way to build your brand, engage users, and get a conversation started than on social platforms. Experiment. Later you can optimize search results by tagging users and adding #hashtags. Best part is it’s completely FREE!
2. Content Creation Tools — Canva
You’ve built your social media profiles and are ready to start building an audience around your brand. Congrats! The key to social media is generating GREAT content that stays true to your brand and resonates with your audience.
You don’t have to spend hours learning complex applications such as photoshop or illustrator to make great content (although these are great tools).
Canva allows you to create images, graphics, text and more. It includes templates for all content outlets including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Canva makes it fast and easy to generate great looking, relevant content to be delivered to your audience. Best of all, it’s FREE.
3. Company T-Shirt/Sweatshirt — CustomInk.com
All startups have a t-shirt and yours should to. Your shirt design and color combinations should stay true to your brand, but also be bold enough to draw attention everywhere you go. As a bootstrapper you ABSOLUTELY MUST wear it everywhere you go.
I have two AppyHour sweatshirts and not a day goes by that I don’t wear one. Why? Because it’s proven to be the most effective way to convert users! Wear your shirt proudly, use it to start conversation, and close the conversation by getting downloads and immediate feedback. BE YOUR BRAND.
4. Grit, Persistence
Your tweets aren’t getting engaged with, your Facebook audience isn’t growing, and quality Instagram posts are hard to come by. Your t-shirt looks great but no one is asking you about it. What’s wrong? What now?
Welcome to the world of bootstrapping.
I promise it WILL SUCK. I promise you WON’T SEE RESULTS OVERNIGHT. I promise IT’S FRUSTRATING. I also promise that if you stay persistent and gritty you WILL LEARN how to leverage the bootstrapper’s toolkit and achieve your business objectives.
What tools do you use to bootstrap your business?
@soyconstantino
