WHAT IT TAKES TO BOOTSTRAP

I apologize for not being able to post the last few weeks I've been super busy teaching and getting my start ups minimum viable product ready for investors to try out.

Anyways I wanted to share what it's been like bootstrapping a start up. As you know it's been a few years from when I wanted to build a mobile game company all the way to where I am now building a line of competitive multiplayer arcade games designed to interact with a social tournament style web application. That's a lot of words to write and it's a been a challenging and fun project to work on.

Anyways to get to this point I had to learn to bootstrap. That's means I've had to make sacrifices and live like a poor student and learn to survive on very little. It's a great thing to go through and experience because you learn what's important. Before this I valued materials and after a while you learn that it's a life that doesn't make you happy. Now I value family, education, innovation, religion, things that money cannot buy.

It's only when I started following my dream of building a game changing company that life really became different for me. My perspective had changed. I no longer cared about cars, buying the most expensive stuff. It forced me to be around good supporting people, family members, and forced me to learn to survive on very little. There are a lot of free resources in the city to help you survive if you actually looked.

I went to a lot of free events to get free food like pizza, chicken, wine, h'orderves. A lot of entrepreneur centers had workshops that gave things like battery chargers and notebooks. Any time I needed a book I would go to the library. I used as many beta programs and trial periods to get the software I needed for my start up. Once you learn a lot of these things, you start to understand that you don't need that much money to survive. At first it took time to get used to but I realized if your resourceful enough you can solve a lot of problems. Too many people take the easy way out. By also taking a part time job you love you can earn money to live while using those survival methods and still build your company. No matter what there is sacrifice involved.

I've barely spent anything and I have a team of 20 people and a lawyer from RIM. My start up team consists of people from Microsoft, IMAX, Mercury Filmworks, RIM, SEGA Amusement, Waterloo, Seneca College and OPSEU Pension Trust. I've been able to problem solve to build great teams. Not everything happened all at once and I did have to go through my ups and downs. Bootstrapping requires you to live smart but it doesn't mean you have to go hungry. Hope this advice helps!!!

Best,

A.

JUST ASK!

As an entrepreneur, I've faced enormous obstacles. Just imagine yourself on a very steep hill trying to push up a boulder 10 times your size. Why do I say that? Because that's what building a company feels like. People think that entrepreneurship is glamorous when it's really not. It takes a significant amount of time. It also requires you to pitch to ask for money to put into your idea. It's risky. However it is also rewarding. I pitched my companies idea through email and in person in the thousands. I kept all the 4000 rejection letters I've sent out. What did I get out of it? A little bit of feedback, some perspective, and I grew a very thick skin.

As a non-technical founder, I come from digital media from the creative side. One thing that a big chunk of investors look for is a technical founder. I've had to recruit and build my start up in a different way. One of the things I've learned is to simply ask people for help. Not all of the time you will get a yes from people but the worse thing that can happen is that you will get a no or a maybe. That's not so bad right? So one of the most valuable lessons I've learned is to just ask. It has led me to  meet the top people at Microsoft, the Founder and CEO of Electronic Arts and so much more.

So just ask.