What is a bootstrapper?

A bootstrapper is someone who uses his own time, money and resources to get a business launched and be successful - whether it is a small one-man shop or a big multi-million dollar company. Bootstrappers believe totally in the viability of their businesses and their ability to execute - otherwise they wouldn’t be doing what they do. After all, they’re risking their own money!

Some folks have emailed me asking how I’m funding Mobiusly and the products we are planning to launch in 2009. The answer is by bootstrapping. Here at Mobiusly, I’m funding the entire operation with no outsiders. Instead of raising finance from angels, venture capitalists, friends or family, I’ve decided to put my (and my wife’s) savings into it. It’s not because I couldn’t raise the money, it’s because I don’t want to raise the money.

That’s crazy you say!

Maybe, but there is a method to my madness. Raising money with outside funds may be appropriate for some businesses, but I don’t think it is right for Mobiusly. If I was starting a company which required lots of initial funds (eg massive infrastructure, marketing, people, tools etc), then I wouldn’t be able to bootstrap.

The good news is I’m not building that type of company

Mobiusly is a micro-ISV. We’re small and lean but super agile. We’re completely virtual and operational costs are low. We don’t need common office space, so we don’t have to worry about rent. We don’t need a shop front as our services are all Internet based. We don’t need to run massive advertising campaigns - we’re hoping clever use of blogging, Twitter and other social media outlets can get the word out as effectively as a 20 second slot during prime time tv. We don’t need to hire developers to get things done. We write our own code.

So why bootstrap?

The obvious answer is because we don’t need the money. We’re doing fine on our own, despite the current lows in the global economy. The less obvious answer is because we like to embrace constraints.

When you have less money, you have less bull-crap. We don’t have 10 people in meetings that last for 3 hours. We don’t spend 2 months writing design documents before we start coding. We don’t go on expensive trips to meet clients or chase a sale. We don’t need to appease investors.

Instead, we meet for 5 minute sessions when needed. We think about a problem, quickly discuss options and then implement solutions. If they are not right, we see that early so we can explore alternatives. We don’t try to chase after the expensive corporate enterprise clients who are hard and expensive to win over. Our products focus on small to medium sized companies and consumers.

We could have that 3 hour meeting, take our time with documentation or go on expensive trips. But we don’t, because we don’t have the size or money to do so. Instead we embrace our constraints and organise our teams and processes in ways that make us effective, responsive and agile. We cut through the red tape and bureaucracy - something our bigger competitors cannot do. We’re quicker to innovate and we do so more often.

Because we don’t have investors, we don’t need to answer to them. We don’t have to write a business case or go through an approval process in order to get funds released from the finance department. Instead, if we see a product or feature worth implementing that obeys our credo and genuinely helps our customers, we go ahead and just do it.

We’ve got what our bigger competitors don’t

Our competitors boasts expensive offices and their sales people wear expensive suits. They have teams of hundreds of developers, designers and business analysts - all cranking away at their keyboards. Tap. Tap. Tap.

By constrast, I do product design, write code, create graphics and work on the marketing myself (at the moment). We will also answer all support questions and emails ourselves. We like to think we’re more personable and pleasant to deal with. Also, because this is our business and our money, you can count on us doing our very best to make sure you are happy and you get what you need.

If you have to boil things down to a few words, we have a small and agile team, who can innovate quickly and often. We don’t have red-tape to slow us down and we cut through the bureaucracy to get to the underlying problem. We don’t have investors, so we can make decisions quickly. We have low overheads, so we can take risks our competitors dare not.

Ok, so we are the underdog. But don’t we all love rooting for the underdog? Check back soon for our first product announcement!

Mobiusly got registered with the Australian Securities and Investment Association (ASIC) on the 3rd of December 2008, which makes it officially a real company. We also got ourselves registered for GST too, which is a sales tax imposed on pretty much all goods and services sold here in Australia.

For an aspiring Entrepreneur, this is the realisation of a dream. Ok, so we haven’t launched anything and we haven’t made any money, but the act of registering a company is the first step towards becoming an Entrepreneur.

To be honest, it wasn’t hard to get setup - so I wonder why it took me so long to do it. Registering a company involves paying some money and filing a bunch of forms. It’s not rocket science. You can do it yourself if you have the patience, time and energy. Me? I hired an accountant to do all the hard work. All up, it cost $1200. I think I could have done better on the price, but I’m happy with the result. The accountant took care of the logistics and paperwork. All I needed to do was turn up at the appointed time and sign on the dotted lines - so whatever I’ve paid extra, I’ve made up for in time saved.

Mobiusly Certificate of Registration

The challenge now for me is setting up the internal processes and accounting systems for Mobiusly so it may run with minimal overheads. For a small company like Mobiusly, being tied up doing admin work can really kill our momentum. As we’re madly putting in the finishing touches on our “secret” product (more on this later), we can’t really afford too many distractions.

For the budding Entrepreneurs out there, you may be interested in our list of remaining setup tasks:

• Getting access to the Australian Tax Office Business Portal
• Setting up MYOB or Excel to track income, expenses and generate invoices
• Sign up with an Insurer for Workers Compensation
• Sign up with a bank for Public Liability Insurance
• Sign up with a bank for Income Protection
• Resign from my current employer
• Transfer all existing contracts to Mobiusly
• Get approved as an Internet Merchant to accept credit cards online

I’ll provide more information each of these as I progress through them. Part of the reason why I’m blogging and disclosing everything I do is because of Mobiusly’s commitment to the Company Customer Pack which dictates we’re human, honest and open with what we do and how we can improve. The other reason is to share what I’ve learnt so that others may benefit from my mistakes and experience. The whole process is somewhat daunting for the uninitiated, so every little bit helps.

Whilst there is a lot of work in front of me, I’ll leave you with this gem of insight:

If you believe your goals to be worth attaining, you owe it to yourself to give it all you got to try to accomplish them. Yes, it may involve hard work and take some time, but if you persevere and remain committed, eventually your dreams will come true. If your goals were simple, everyone would be doing the same and they won’t be worth attaining. Take the hurdles and obstacles as challenges and stepping stones instead of road blocks.

Who Am I

Hi there. My name is Dave Cheong and I am a Software Engineer, productivity blogger and father of 2 girls.

By profession, I spend my days coding for other people and helping big companies solve their problems to make more money. I get paid well to do what I do. I work with nice people. We play board games like this and this during lunch. By most standards, work is great.

The Dream

But great is not enough. You see, I learnt early on that I’m just wired differently. Most people are happy with the status quo. Me? I believe that life is short and precious. We should spend it doing things that enrich us and make us better people.

Ask yourself Are you a Happy Employee and if ever the answer is not a definitive “YES”, you owe it to yourself to do something about it! So on the eve of my 32nd birthday, I decided to do something about it. I decided to start living my dream as an Entrepreneur.

Introducing Mobiusly

Mobiusly represents my mission to help people do what they do better with great software. Why?

• Because life is precious
• Because software doesn’t have to suck
• Because things shouldn’t be this hard
• Because there is room for innovation

Mobiusly also represents my mission to create a company with passionate users. Whilst anyone can write software, few can make people care about it. The only way to make people care is to create something that touches them at the core. To do so, we create things that:

The name Mobiusly is derived from Mobius Strip which is an object with a single unending side. It symbolises our boundless passion and ongoing commitment to helping people get better through great software.

What’s Next?

Watch this space as we’ll be launching our first product in Jan 2009. In the meantime, take a look at our company’s About page for our commitment to the Company Customer Pack. If you want to find out more about me, you can view my profile or personal blog.