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I've never understood the math behind this attitude that bootstrapping a profitable business needs to take up 100% percent of your time, to the exclusion of sle
by jasonkester 14y ago
I've never understood the math behind this attitude that bootstrapping a profitable business needs to take up 100% percent of your time, to the exclusion of sleep, friends, and life in general. It just doesn't need to be that way.
Example: During the first year of bootstrapping Twiddla, I lived quite comfortably in a nice little apartment overlooking Plaza del Castillo in Pamplona, working the days I was inspired to and rock climbing the days I wasn't. Money was going out the door (though not particularly fast at Spanish real estate & wine prices), but nowhere near fast enough to sweat about it at all.
At one point, I downed tools and did 3 months of consulting (with the aforementioned climbing breaks mixed in and plenty of days back on the real project when inspiration struck) to sock away enough to bootstrap the next year. No 60 hour weeks. No broken marriages. Just a really fun time spent writing code and building something that would eventually start paying the rent.
Consulting pays very well. Like embarrassingly well. If what you're doing doesn't pay enough to sock away 3 month's runway for every month you do it, you're either not charging enough or are living way too large. Bootstrapping from consulting income is absolutely doable. No need to pull out pie charts to make it work. It just does.