What is BOOTSTRAPPING a startup? | Meaning BOOTSTRAPPING | Definition BOOTSTRAPPING |

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Business terms making your head burst? Thinking about setting up a start-up but the language of entrepreneurs is leaving you a little lost? Then fear not, I’m here to help. Speak Like Shaf will explain all those tricky terms and make sure you feel more confident when it comes to talking business jargon. As an additional bonus, I’ll throw in the odd ocassional piece of entrepreneurial advice. Today we are looking at the term bootstrapping.

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Does this conjure up images of pulling on a sturdy pair of boots, fighting with the laces and stomping over everything in your path? Well, the phrase “pulling yourself up by the bootstraps” was first used in the 19th century to mean achieving the impossible. It later evolved to become a metaphor for achieving something yourself with no outside assistance.

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In business, its meaning goes along the same sort of lines. Bootstrapping is when an entrepreneur sets up their business using only their own capital, they aren’t receiving funds or backing from a bank or any other investors. The company has been started with little or no assets. The entrepreneur relies on savings, canny operations and a quick turnover to start building up a business. One way a bootstrapped company might get off the ground is to take orders and use the cash from those first sales to make and deliver the product.

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This business model has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, all the risk is placed on the founder. They are 100 per cent responsible for the success or failure of the company. If resources are limited, growth can be impacted and may affect the quality of the product.

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On the other hand, sure, the risk is placed on the founder, but if the business is successful, the rewards will be the founders. With no other investors to answer to, the entrepreneur is fully in charge of decisions and has control over the company and its direction. They are focused on running the business and dealing with orders, they don’t have to worry about pitching for investment.

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Let’s go back to the Stone Age and see how my pal Rab The Rock Star is doing. He’s featured in every Speak Like Shaf I’ve done and he’s fantastic at helping explain to you what these terms all mean. Rab launched the original bootstrap company. When he came up with the idea of making and selling tools to help hunters catch more prey, he didn’t go round his fellow cavemen and ask for their help. Nope, he did it all himself and that meant he was in charge of his own destiny.

As a side note as well as being the first bootstrapper Rab could very easily have been the first Solopreneur in Human history, but he quickly realized he preferred spending his day networking and meetings his customers, rather than being content simply doing the work but that’s for a future video.

A more recent example of a bootstrapped company is Spanx. Sara Blakely founded the underwear company in 2000 with just $5 ,000 of her own money after she hit upon a genius idea. Now, thankfully I’ve never had to worry about VPL but she did and one night, before she was going to a party, she cut off the feet from her pantyhose to get a smooth line under her new trousers. Her hosiery and slimming underwear company took off and in 2012 she made Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. She’s thought to have a personal fortune of a cool $1billion. Just goes to show that thinking about smalls can generate a big business.

It’s estimated that 80 per cent of start-ups are funded by the founder so bootstrapping is a very common way to launch your own business. Once you’re up and running, you need to make sure you don’t crash and burn and I can give you all the advice you need,. Simply subscribe to my YouTube channel and let’s get started! Oh and don’t forget to hit the like button for this video.