Boot Strapping Web 2.0 Style

Guy Kawasaki wrote about boot strapping and this morning I had a conversation with Silicon Valley Bank about funding. So, I thought some insight on how we are boot strapping Hubpages might help.

1. No Salaries. Each of us committed to work with out a salary for 3 months. After that time, we all have agreed to take salaries that are far below our market worth or at least much less thant what MS used to pay us.
2. Start with the right team. Web 2.0 is based on building stuff quickly. Start with a team that can make a product. And start making it. Each person should contribute. Only start with A+ developers. Each developer should be like 3. It lays the foundation of an excellent development team as well as great developers like to work with great developers. This will make growing the team easier in the future. The Meebo founder had a good comment about their team of three. He said, he went to all the meetings before funding, but left the 2 developers so they could keep improving the product. Good advice. If you have a team of all business types, it makes writing code and making progress difficult.
3. It's easier to save money than make it. So Hubpages monthly expenses look like this:
• Rent: $700.
• Hosting: $120 (We have one managed server. We didn't set up a huge infrastructure based on the traffic we believe will come. If it grows quickly, we will probably feel some pain, but it will be good pain.)
• Misc: less than $200.
• Total: Under $1,000 a month.
4. Start in a garage. Card tables for desks. Splurge on Monitors. No offices. Lot's of coffee.
   
5. Have a plan. It creates integrity. Ours is build a beta. Get customers. Raise minimal capital. Refine. Improve. Refine. Add a couple great people.