Bootstrappers Breakfast - San Francisco

Bootstrappers Breakfast is an interesting event in San Francisco. Pretty simple format - you are coming to have a coffee and speak with other members about startups, technologies and life.  We joined this Breakfast® meeting to speak about a business based on internal cash flow and organic profit. This is not for entrepreneurs who want to meet VCs, this is for founders who are actively bootstrapping a startup.

I like this format best as its pretty easy to communicate - not so much people and everybody connecting and you have your own 2 min speech to present yourself, your project and ideas.

Over 1.5 hours you may get so many useful information about success and fails.

This particular discussion topic start from the way how to promote product without looking for funding.

If bootstrapping where do you get funding?

consulting

govt grants

customers

Equity guidelines

it's a negation

share of profit

Outsourcing

Outsourcing often takes trying multiple consultants. One attendees rule of thumb is it is about 5 to find 1 keeper (great consultant).

Outsourcing sources: oDesk, Elance.

How did you find inital customers?

adwords

conference

SPAM

We had a mixed discussion about adwords. It works well for some attendees but was too expensive for others.

Best quote of the day:

"I am willing to risk all the money that I have but no more."

We also had a discussion about patents. A couple of things to keep in mind: Do you have the money to enforce it? Most of the time, it is better to have customers than patents. Trademarks & copyright can more important than patents.

Glad to be there.