Bootstrap your business

The term bootstrapping means to start a business without external support or investment. There are lots of ways the entrepreneur can bootstrap their business during startup such as retain all generated revenues, borrow on personal credit cards, redundancy payments, personal loans, second mortgages and customer advances.

Lots of businesses can be started for under £25,000 but it is difficult to raise this from external sources either as a business loan or from private investors because the risk is so high at this stage of a businesses life. That is why bootstrapping is the way most businesses startup and is often the only way to get things started as the entrepreneur takes all the risk.

This difficulty to gain external finance is often referred to as the equity gap and depending on who you talk to will depend on where they think it is, some say it is below £250,000 but we think business angel investors fill this gap. We believe the equity gap is really for finance below £50,000.

Why bootstrap your business?

• It may be the only way to start

• You get to keep all the profits

• You retain full control of your business

• It makes you focus on generating revenue and profit as quickly as possible

• You are more likely to keep costs under control

• Creativity and innovation are a necessity to keep the costs down