CERMAT BIAYA

Bootstrapping

       Banyak di antara kita yang punya ide-ide untuk membuat usaha-usaha baru, setelah selesai mengatur ide seperti biasanya timbul masalah baru, yaitu permodalan. Terutama untuk yang baru akan memulai usaha untuk pertamakali. Memang ada banyak alternatif permodalan tetapi bagi yang belum punya pengalaman dalam membangun usaha atau belum punya usaha sendiri mungkin agak susah dan ngeri bila langsung berhubungan dengan kredit dari bank sehubungan dengan syarat-syarat yang harus dipenuhi.

    Terus bagaimana? apa karena tidak ada modal terus ide usaha dibuang begitu saja? Sayang dong, karena untuk memulai usaha bisa dengan alternatif permodalan yang disebut Bootstrap atau Bootstrapping. Apa itu Bootstrap? Bootstrap adalah suatu cara mengumpulkan modal untuk memulai usaha, biasanya berasal dari kantong sendiri, saudara atau teman. Sebenarnya masih ada beberapa metode lain namun untuk kali ini saya lebih menekankan pada metode yang saya sebutkan didepan. Memulai suatu usaha baru dengan melakukan bootstrapping ada beberapa keuntungan :

1. Tidak ada beban bunga hutang. Walaupun ada biasanya sangat negotiable dan kecil apalagi kalau sebagian besar berasal dari kantong sendiri. Dengan tidak adanya beban bunga maka usaha yang dijalankan akan ringan beban costnya dan dapat menurunkan harga jual.
2. Mengurangi campur tangan orang lain. Baik dari sisi manajemen maupun pembagian keuntungan, dengan demikian ide anda 100% akan dapat diterapkan disini. Semangat entrepreneurship masih ada di tangan anda secara utuh!
3. Jangka pengembalian modal fleksibel. Karena berasal dari saudara dan teman, jangka waktu pengembalian dapat diatur sesuai kemampuan dan tingkat kemajuan usaha. Tapi ingat, harus tetap dikembalikan! namanya juga hutang.

 Bootstrap adalah suatu cara mengumpulkan modal untuk memulai usaha, biasanya berasal dari kantong sendiri, saudara atau teman.

Selain beberapa keuntungan diatas ada juga kelemahan dari metode ini:

1. Untuk mengumpulkan modal dari beberapa orang membutuhkan waktu, dan bisa mengganggu konsentrasi ke usaha.
2. Dalam jangka panjang hutang kepada teman dan saudara menimbulkan perasaan hutang budi walaupun hutang sudah dilunasi.

Dengan metode Bootstrapping ini anda dapat memulai usaha dan mewujudkan ide, walaupun itu usaha skala kecil tapi bila dilakukan dengan benar tidak mustahil akan berkembang menjadi besar suatu saat.

* Bahan bacaan di bawah ini dalam bahasa Inggris.

10 Ideas for Bootstrapping Your Business

It’s so easy sometimes to assume some angel investor or VC is going to swoop in and just “magically” fund your start-up.  The reality no one wants to hear though, is this doesn’t happen.  In fact, unless you are “in” the tight knit circle….no matter how good of an idea you got, it won’t get you funding.  The only funding that exists for you…is to create your company’s wealth by yourself.  Via bootstrapping.
This isn’t to say though, everyone will bootstrap forever.  Usually what happens, is once the company becomes successful….then money comes running.  And you can count on that happening.  Ever heard someone say “Money only comes when you don’t need it”?  It’s because it’s true.
So today, I know I’m contradicting myself in writing this…but perhaps one of the best things you can do, is to ignore investors while you are building your idea and in the beginning stages of your business.  Pretend they don’t even exist.  You will kill your company trying to satisfy these people, because every single one you talk to will have a different idea of what your company should be.  Build your business for revenue, not investors.
1. Bootstrapping with Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is usually one of the first ideas for bootstrapping many entrepreneurs will have.  My partners and I actually took crowdfunding for a test drive to see what the big deal was all about.  I found little value, unless you actively promote it directly to possible funders (in which case you must already have a large market reach, or you raise via the platform through friends/family).  This includes a heck of alot more than just putting it up on their site.  Whether or not this time is actually better spent driving revenue into your business, is unknown.  But I suspect it is.  A crowdfunding bill may pass soon that will make fundraising easier for many of you bootstrapping, but we’re all still waiting.
Crowdfunding does however, seem to work really well for art, nonprofits, & film.

2. Bootstrapping with a Business Partner
Business partner or co-founder, whatever you want to call it.  Small businesses really do thrive on two business partners.  Most business partners actually start multiple companies together.  One of you usually handle the back-end, the other handles the front end operations.  This isn’t necessarily cash, but time equates to money.  Business partners (that is…profit/loss partners) almost always split the bills as well.
So if you have someone special in your work life that compliments your own talents really well, consider starting a business together. 

3. Bootstrapping with Strategic Partners
Strategic partners, most often, will not provide cash.  But…what they do offer could quite possibly be more valuable.  Strategic partners often share resources (such as talent), clients, market reach, commercial space, among other things.  Even real estate brokers do this.  Real estate brokers will often share assistants because there isn’t enough work for one full time employee.

4. Bootstrapping with Future Customers
Customers are {and always will be} your best source of revenue.  You might incentive them with discounts to buy your product before it’s built.  This one’s a little harder to do if you’re targeting consumers (B2C), but works better for B2B product based businesses.

5.  Give It Away for Free (No..not always)
We all know the pain in bootstrapping of getting your first client on board.  Every entrepreneur has a first, there is no shame in it.  But clients never want to be the first.  One of the best strategies I have taking a new service to market, is to give away for free to the first one.  Ask that client, if you do a good job…will they refer you to someone (this is the stipulation for giving something away for free).

6.  Bootstrapping with Credit Cards
The majority of businesses are built with…credit cards.  So many people seem to forget that you need to work on establishing credit for your company, just like you did your own personal credit.  Start off small, buy a printer or something around $100 bucks, pay it off over a period of months (yes, it will incur interest…but it will help you build credit for your business).

7.  Validate a Profit Margin Before Hiring
A proven profit margin will reduce your risk of hiring additional people.  So your goal as a bootstrapping business, is to not scale the company right off the bat.  Your goal is to find a strategy and prove a profit margin, and then scale (as a side note, many entrepreneurs also make this mistake in attempting to fundraise prior to finding that market fit, strategy, and profit margin.  A company is never ready to scale  until this is proven).

8.  Bootstrapping with Interns
Interns can be excellent for bootstrapping a business.  If you’ve got time on your hands to help train them, that is.  They are a little needy at first, but they could make great employees once they graduate because you’ve already gone through the pain of training them.  Also, I find they are hungry & driven, some work harder than most. 

9.  Build Your Brand…Personality
Good businesses have personalities, especially service providers.  If you are a service provider, people aren’t buying a product.  They are buying you.  Portray your personality into your company.  This is cheap and easy to do.  When you get your logo or website designed, explain the personality to the designer.    Logo Mojo is pretty cool if you need a cheaper alternative while you’re bootstrapping.  They’re in that middle ground between too expensive, and too ugly/cheap.  I like them.

10. Share Knowledge
Sharing knowledge is a very powerful way for many service providers to establish themselves as an expert.  It also helps alot of young entrepreneurs.  The funny thing about sharing knowledge is it also strikes up a conversation, which helps you get connected.  Most of the people that have contributed to my company (like my strategic partners, a consultant, and even one of my board members) I met blogging through here.  I had 0 connections when I first started (yes, I was a loner…).  Now I have about 5,000 connections and have mentors all over the place too (now, if I could just remember to follow up with them….).  By the way, if you’ve got something to share…or need to get yourself out there, you’re more than welcome to guest post here.   If you don’t want to write, check out our advertising options to sponsor an article.
In the end, although these ideas for bootstrapping certainly help alleviate some of the pressure…remember you’re an entrepreneur because you’re the first to take the financial risk.  That’s what an entrepreneur does, that’s what an entrepreneur is.  Building a business, whether bootstrapping or not, whether being a product or a service, is a matter of constantly reinvesting in your own business.  And reinvesting in the right things.  You wouldn’t believe how many start-ups I hear say “Well, I don’t want to put any money into my business”.  I don’t want to be harsh on anyone or crush dreams, but if you’re not into risk and investing your own money into your business….well, you might just be in the wrong career.
“If you’ve never put your own paycheck away in a drawer to sacrifice for your company, and the people that work for you, then you’re not an entrepreneur”. – Janice, Founder & CEO of the Gabriel Institute.  

10 Reasons to Bootstrap Your Business 

Getting your startup off the ground takes cash. There are a number of ways to raise funding for your business, but with every investment dollar you accept you sell a piece of the startup’s soul. You want to be able to focus on building a great product, not on balancing the ideas and priorities of a pool of investors.

That means bootstrapping. Bootstrapping opens up a whole new set of possibilities that you just don’t have with investors. Here are some of the ways bootstrapping can help your startup shine:

•  Bootstrapping tells the world you’re committed. Anyone can go out there and convince angel investors to part with capital. It takes quite another thing to put your own personal financial well-being on the line. If you’re committed to the startup, your employees (and eventually your customers) will be, as well.
• Bootstrapping is faster than investment. You can chase investors around for a decade without ever having a product to show for it. Depending on your field and your product or service, you can have a bootstrapped product to market in less than six months. You might even start to turn a profit within the first 12 months.
• Bootstrapping opens the door for better investment. Investors are more likely to put capital behind your business if you’ve already got something to show for it. Your bootstrapping can get your business out of the gate, opening up opportunities for investment. That’s called “leverage,” and it will let you get more investment in exchange for less equity in your startup.
• Bootstrapping tests the market. Getting a product to market quickly via a rapid prototype process (funded by bootstrapping) lets you see what your customers really want and what they’ll buy. This lets you come back and build a product that’s even more in line with customer demand, creating a much wider market.
• Bootstrapping creates positive pressure. By having your own funds and your own financial well-being on the line, there is even more incentive for you to get out there and do what needs to be done. When you’ve got venture capital behind you, it’s not truly your own neck on the line. If you get to the place where you believe “this startup must succeed or I’ll lose my mortgage,” you’ll work your butt off to make it succeed.
• Bootstrapping gives you flexibility. When you have investors, there are immediate expectations. Investors like things to be done in a certain way. In many cases, investors will tie you down to methods and models that are proven effective. While that can be good, it can also stifle creativity. By branching out on your own, you might revolutionize your field.
• Bootstrapping bypasses the approval process. If you want to make changes to your business model on the fly, you can do it when you bootstrap. When you have investors, there’s an approval process you need to follow instead. You can make a decision one day and implement it the next.
• Bootstrapping puts you in touch with every aspect of how your business works. By putting all of your business in your own hands, you’re going to know how it works all around. When the time comes for you to bring in someone to do marketing, you’ll fully understand what her job should be like. The same goes for business development, production, and other business areas.
• Bootstrapping lets you keep all of the profits. We’ve talked a lot about the risks involved in bootstrapping. Bootstrapping also lets you get all of the gain, however.You can be making money from day one.
• Bootstrapping brings in committed, talented people. People who go to work for a bootstrapped startup have an immediate incentive to work and to work hard. They know that their livelihood depends on the success of the company. They’ll work hard and long to make sure that you get off the ground. Best of all, they won’t come to work for you in the first place if they don’t believe in your company. That kind of faith shows through in every aspect of your business. 

Bootstrapping isn’t always the easiest way to fund a startup. Indeed, for some businesses it may not make sense at all. If your business can be funded with bootstrapping, however, give it some serious consideration. Not only will it pay off in the near term with a better product and more freedom, it will pay off in the long term with a greater share of the profits.

10 Tips for Successful Bootstrapping

Getting venture capital should not be the end all source of financing. The key to success is bootstrapping.

BY Guy Kawasaki

Someone once told me the probability of an entrepreneur getting venture capital is the same as getting struck by lightning while standing at the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day. This may be too optimistic.

Let's say you can't raise money for whatever reason. This doesn't mean you should give up. The key to success is bootstrapping.

1. Focus on cash flow, not profitability. The theory is that profits are the key to survival. If you could pay the bills with theories, this would be fine. The reality is that you pay bills with cash, so focus on cash flow: a small upfront capital requirement, short sales cycles, short payment terms and recurring revenue--and pass up the big sale that takes a year to close and collect. Cash is not only king-it's queen and prince, too.
2. Forecast from the bottom up. Most entrepreneurs forecast top-down: "If 1 percent of U.S. car owners install our satellite radio systems, that's 1.5 million systems." The bottom-up forecast: "We can open 10 facilities that each install 10 systems a day." Guess which forecast is more likely to happen?
3. Ship, then test. How can I recommend shipping stuff that isn't perfect? "Perfect" is the enemy of "good enough." When your product is "good enough," get it out, because cash flows when you start shipping. By shipping, you also learn what customers truly want you to fix.
4. Forget the "proven" team. They're overrated. Hire young, inexpensive, hun-gry people with fast chips, but not necessarily a fully functional instruction set.
5. Start as a service business. Say you want to build a software company: Provide consulting and services based on your work-in-progress software. This has two advantages: immediate revenue and true customer testing. Once the software is field-tested, flip the switch and become a product company.
6. Focus on function, not form. Mea culpa. I love good form: MacBooks, Audis and Breitling watches. But bootstrappers focus on function: computing, getting from Point A to Point B and knowing the time of day. All the chair has to do is hold your butt. It doesn't have to look like it belongs in the Museum of Modern Art.
7. Understaff. Many entrepreneurs staff up for what could happen, best case. Bootstrappers understaff, knowing that all hell might break loose.
9. Go direct. The optimal number of mouths between a bootstrapper and her customer is zero. Sure, stores provide great customer reach and wholesalers provide distribution. But e-commerce was invented so you could sell direct and reap greater margins.
10. Position against the leader. Toyota introduced Lexus, claiming it's as good as a Mercedes-Benz but half the price--Toyota didn't have to explain what "good as a Mercedes-Benz" meant. How much do you think they saved? "Cheap iPod" and "poor man's Bose speakers" work, too.

Five Rules for Bootstrapping Success

Follow these tips to get your dream business off the ground without seeking outside investors.

BY Jim Beach, David Beasley and Chris Hanks

It may be slower, less sexy, and counterintuitive, but you can be better off growing your small business by bootstrapping rather than seeking outside capital. Bootstrapping can make the business owner focus on profits and cash flow, and it frees him or her to spend time on selling and on solving problems that are keeping the company from making a profit.
Bootstrapping can also be better for employees. They work at a firm where there is a clear and absolute line of authority and they are taught a surefire way to sell a product. Also, more shares are available for them in employee stock option plans.
Overall, bootstrapping can force you to be more realistic, to not waste time and to be better prepared for the long run. After all, you're in control and accountable -- not an investor. If you follow these five rules, you should be able to bootstrap your idea and get it up and running.
1. Get Operational Quickly
One of the best things you can do to reduce risk is to begin selling immediately. Hopefully, you'll generate revenue right from the very beginning. If you can find a product or service that will sell immediately to large num¬bers of customers, you can use those sales to finance your startup, using the receivables as collateral for a loan.
2. Understaff
In the beginning of a company's life cycle, the entrepreneur must be the chief salesperson, chief marketing officer, chief fulfillment officer, chief financial officer and the person in charge of cleaning the toilet every day. To bootstrap successfully, entrepreneurs must sacrifice their own vanity and do all of the jobs that previously had been done by a large support team.
3. Keep Growth in Check
It may seem counterintuitive, but slow, steady growth is preferable to fast, explosive growth. The second outcome usually requires a tremendous influx of capital. Growing organically is maybe not as sexy, but it's more likely to produce a company with no debt that is able to weather recessions and crises.
One option is to start a business on the side that requires your time in the morning or evening before or after your normal job. In year one, you might make $10,000 in sales. In year two, aim for $100,000 in sales and $15,000 in profit. And in year three, perhaps you'll be able to afford to pay yourself $50,000 from the $300,000 of sales. This slow-growth plan reduces your risk and makes sure that you have active health insurance the entire time.
4. Forecast from the Bottom Up
Decide in advance how much you want to make during the first year of your business. Assume for instance you want to make $50,000 in profits and that from each sale you make $1,000 profit. That means you'll need to make 50 sales during the year, or about one a week.
Forecasting from the bottom up gives you the ability to meet your sales goals and therefore to control your startup costs and growth rate. You know, for example, that for every four customers you meet, you sell one unit. This means you must meet with four customers every week. To generate four customers, you must make one hundred telephone calls to get the appointments.
Using this method, you can back into your sales and profit necessity by calculating the number of calls you must make or advertisements you must place. If making one hundred calls in a week is impossible, at least you will know and be able to work backward from that point.

5. Reconsider the Traditional Business Plan
The low-risk, bootstrapping entrepreneur doesn't need start out by writing a detailed business plan. He or she starts small, with one or two sales, slowly building with little if any debt and using his or her day job as a cushion, creating a sustainable, profitable business from day one.
Using this formula, the only person who would read your business plan is you, and you already know what the plan is. Planning is important; spending weeks writing about it is not important. Later in your career as an entrepreneur, having a formal business plan may be a good idea as you venture into larger companies and indeed want to use someone else's money to do so. But for now, that's not necessary. Spend that time selling.
More than anything, remember that the details of a business are less important than simply getting your business off the ground. Nothing matters but getting that first paying customer, and then another and another. Every sale builds on itself. In the long term, what matters is not the fancy office or title. It's the profit that you will use to pay your bills, grow the business even larger and secure the self-made future you always wanted.

5 Ways to Bootstrap Your Startup

By Rieva Lesonsky

The conflicting (frequently unsolicited) advice startup entrepreneurs too often hear is enough to make you tune it all out. Either you’re told that you need to go big and grab all the angel or VC money you can get your hands on, or that you should start small, do it on your own, and retain control of your company.

But bootstrapping a startup is not easy, requiring discipline and fortitude, as well as ingenuity. But entrepreneurs who have done it have discovered some best practices to increase the odds of success.

Serial entrepreneur Rachel Blankstein is bootstrapping her latest startup, Comparz, the largest independent user review site for businesses seeking Web-based software. Blankstein admits bootstrapping also involves “a lot of ingenuity, trial and error - and an immense amount of hard work.“ But she insists there are benefits to bootstrapping. It enables you to “build something incredible with next to no cash, and to retain significant ownership of your company.” Blankstein offers five ways to operate your startup with minimal cash burn.

Bootstrap 1. Offer Equity Compensation to Team Members: Generate interest in joining your team by giving equity to others with complementary skill sets to yours. With a four-year vesting schedule and a six-month “cliff” or trial period, you can get others to join in on the fun of startup, and make progress without expending cash. This type of equity structure safeguards you, so you won’t have to give away a lot of your company if the person does not produce results. In fact, with the six-month cliff, if they do not work out within that timeframe, you have not given away any equity.

Bootstrap 2. Leverage the Skilled Unemployed: Encourage talented workers who are between jobs to work for you, which benefits them by keeping their resumes fresh, and allows them to build new skills. This is a win-win for the younger segment of the workforce who value building skills and enhancing their resumes. They will be grateful for the opportunity, and you will be grateful for their hard work with no cash expenditure. Just make sure you don’t violate any employment laws.

Bootstrap 3. Barter, barter, barter: You can barter more than you think. It can be as simple as saving money on marketing by promoting someone in a blog post who then promotes your company to their audience. There are a thousand ways to do it, but by providing more favors to others, they will be happy to do favors for you - whether you need expert advice, exposure or someone to test your product, etc. You can also barter for services. Exchange your coding skills with someone who will offer the equivalent value of marketing. Just remember, it’s all accountable to the IRS.

Bootstrap 4. Build Relationships with Key Influencers: A successful entrepreneur often has strong relationships with key influencers in their industries. If you don’t have these relationships at the outset of your venture, build them. This gives your brand more exposure to the “right people,” offers you priceless insights into your industry and snowballs as these contacts introduce you to more “important people” if you prove to be good at what you are doing.

Bootstrap 5. Outsource: Don’t hire people, use independent consultants who come highly recommended from your peers when you need to bring in expertise. That way you can learn from them, and use your low-to-no-cost team to implement their ideas. Blankstein adds, “While these may not be ideal [solutions], this is how you limit cash burn, which is important for a startup or business of any size.“

3 Rules of Bootstrapping

Bootstrapping takes guts.  It’s often easier to assume a check is going to come in, and roll out most of the risk to an investor.

But what alot of us don’t take into consideration, is investors don’t invest until the majority of the risk has been eliminated.  So every Entrepreneur will have to plan on bootstrapping at some point in the game.  Whether you’re bootstrapping to elminate risk, or you’re just bootstrapping the whole damn thing, there’s alot of pain and suffering that comes along with startup bootstrapping.

Rule #1 of Bootstrapping: Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize.

During the bootstrapping phase, time is limited.  Cash is limited.  Startup credit cards are limited.  Everything is limited!  That’s why prioritizing is the most important rule.

Prioritizing when bootstrapping doesn’t just mean as cheap you can, as fast as you can.

It means:

• Quality, with a conscious eye on price.
• Following the 80/20 rule.
• Investing your time and money for profit.

You see, normal people don’t think of their time as profit.  After all, we go to work we get paid for our time.  We come home, we don’t get paid for our time.  But, your time is always an investment to someone.  As an employee, you have an ROI to your employer.  As a parent, you invest your time into your children.

Also keep in mind, it may be fun to sit around & brainstorm ideas all day, but at the end of the day…if nothing gets executed, you have nothing.

Rule #2 of Bootstrapping: Delegate, Delegate, Delegate.

Delegating goes hand in hand with prioritizing.  Again, so important for startup bootstrapping.  The DIY approach may be cheap, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s really not.  Let’s look at this scenario:

• I can’t count how many times I’ve seen an Entrepreneur try to do accounting. 

• It takes them weeks to do what an accountant could’ve done in a day.

• Nothing wrong with that, but had the Entrepreneur put those weeks into doing what he’s good at, he would’ve made a much larger profit on outsourcing the accounting.

• So look beyond the immediate payout.

• You may be writing a check to that accountant, but look at the extra sales that were produced that month with your delegating and freeing up of your time.

When you’re bootstrapping, remember, your world revolves around profit.  Just keep in mind, the profit may not always be as obvious.

Most of us Entrepreneurs get used to this mindset after a while.  I can’t even buy toilet paper now without trying to figure out where the profit is.

Rule #3 of Bootstrapping: Synergize, Synergize, Synergize.

Always be on the look out to synergize anything and everything in your startup bootstrapping.  The concept of synergy is:

• 1+1+1= 111
• That means the sum is greater than what could be produced by the individual parts alone.
• Synergize complimentary products & services.

What are some ideas a startup can synergize?

• A hair salon can synergize with a nail salon, for example, by sharing customers, rental space, equipment.  They target the same profile customer, yet have complimentary products/services.
• Synergize your own skills.  Extrovert?  Find yourself an Introvert.  Sales driven?  Find a partner who is consumer driven.

Synergy has basics that come first though:

• Seek to understand.
• Then seek to be understood.
• That underlying understanding is what establishes the trust and bond necessary to synergize.

There’s definetley a lot more rules & details of bootstrapping, but the goal of this was to keep your eyes on the big picture.