Tuesday’s Keynote speaking from the MySQL Users Conference including a presentation from Greg Gianforte of RightNow Technologies on “Bootstrapping: Starting an Open Source Business With Almost No Money!” Read More.
Taking directly from Greg’s presentation, here are some key points for bootstraping that meant something to me.
- Sales is Job #1
- Don’t spend Beyond Your Means
- There Is Always Another Way
- What is Your Noble Purpose?
Some great points. In summary, not having funds should not be an excuse, find another way . You just need to think creatively. I agree completely, thinking creatively is something I do well. Immerse yourself – talk to lots of people, develop a one page description, get it out to as many people as possible, talk to people, ask for an order. Of course sales is #1, but for me personally, and also within the essense of the presentation – Honesty. His passion about helping people to get started has also lead to publishing a book for bootstrappers (in paperback to save money).
One of the key goals is to “Help our clients to better serve our customers”. Greg was also correct in the need to correct the loss of ethics in the IT and software industry, something I fight for back at home.
A number of these points provided great relevence given I’ve worked for two failed Internet startups.
The closing quiz raised some great questions. Here they are. (Hopefully now reproducible in the Open Source community, oops too late now!)
- #1 What should you do first?
- #2 You have an idea. What next?
- #3 You have a good product, What next?
- #4 You find a prospect. What next?
- #5 Your product does not do everything a prospect wants. Should you?
- #6. A major publication calls saying they are writing a big article about your products and wants you to buy an ad in the same issue of their magzine. You should?
- #7 You are still gettting started and Dun & Bradstreet is asking for company info and detailed financial data. Should you:
- #8 A major prospect says they want to fly to visit you, but you are still working out of your house. Should you:
- #9 You are the only person working full time in the business and you are aksed how many employees you have. Tell them:
- #10 You’ve just made your first sale and generated your first montly profit. You should.
I’ll save the expense by not giving any answers, but my favourite answer was for #9.
Greg started the presentation with the right words for me. Love Mountains, Love Skiing, check out our Careers. Anybody that knows me, knows that my plan for this year, it to be in the Northen Hemisphere for Winter, working for an organisation that is close to the snow, enabling me to go skiing. I just may have check it out.
