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Bootstrapping without an abundance mindset won’t get you far. That’s a lessons we learned the last couple of months.
This journey we are on, the journey of starting a business. It is as you probably already guessed, a journey with ups and downs. Money is probably the most tricky part in this. We have been literally in despair at times, especially when thinking that what we created was not good enough, or too far from our original idea of what we wanted to do. Sometimes doubting ourselves or holding back on delivery because we did not feel comfortable with certain actions we had to take.
And at times we questioned whether we would ever find our way back to feeling confident about our business, our products and ourselves ever again.
By far the most difficult moments evolved around money. I think everyone can relate that being anxious about money is a mood spoiler. When we started this, we thought that we could do it without big investments. After all, we are not building a brick and mortar business here.
Luckily it’s not just on us to bring in the cash to provide for our families. We both have a partner and have the luxury that we can take some time to figure things out. So we thought we were good to go without any loans or extra capital.
Even so, life happens and sometimes that comes with its challenges. So for a long time I let my decision about whether or not to spend money, come from a place of scarcity, rather than from a balanced consideration.
We should have known that everything would be ok. It’s funny, when we started this journey we had a general idea, a direction we wanted to follow. We knew our mission and how we wanted to go about realizing it, but we had no idea how to get there or what the details would be.
From the start the Universe has played its role in the creation of our company. On numerous occasions it was as if we were guided towards certain things.
With that realization came the insight that starting from a scarcity mindset wasn’t serving us. Now, how to make the shift to an abundance mindset?
And than, we found out that there is a name for the way we are building our business.
It’s called bootstrapping!
Funny how your mind shifts easily when you realize that you are not alone in doing things a certain way. It suddenly made us feel empowered. Learning from other entrepreneurs, leveraging their experiences to keep going and fighting to accomplish our dreams. It makes us feel proud that we are part of a bootstrappers movement. We have to be resourceful to do things a bit different sometimes. At the moment we do everything ourselves. We are learning things that we have never heard of before.
Granted, it is frustrating, even annoying at times. But more and more it is just fun and rewarding. An abundance mindset means we celebrate our wins and enjoy the journey with its ups and downs.
“What sets bootstrapping apart from other forms of business funding is that it relies heavily on entrepreneurs’ frugal thinking, creativity, thriftiness, planning and cost-cutting efficiency skills.”
Along the way we learned so much more about what is possible. And one direction, one idea led to another and brought us to new insights and different approaches. We are in the middle of learning and doing now and it is exciting and energizing to see what it can become,… what we can become!
PS: Bootstrapping your startup means growing your business with little or no venture capital or outside investment. It means relying on your own savings and revenue to operate and expand. It’s not easy to do, but it’s incredibly rewarding.
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