I've long been banging on talking about bootstrapping as a way to build higher quality companies than raising early-stage VC. Some of the most successful tech companies -- like eBay, Microsoft, SAP, Siebel, Business Objects and Sage -- were originally bootstrapped before raising external funding. As a result they tended to be more customer-focused, more capital-efficient and delivered greater returns to their founders and investors.
That is the fundamental insight that guides the investment strategy of my firm, Kennet Partners. We like growth equity investing because it allows us to build on proven, existing businesses and to focus all our energies on helping founders with the challenge of turning a successful niche player into an international, scalable company.
To support our strategy, we recently launched a new website, with an expanded library of resources targeted specifically at entrepreneurs who are building their businesses with little or no external capital. These are not the only kinds of companies we invest in, but they are our favourites.
On the website (which is very Web 2.0 as it was built entirely in Wordpress, with help from Velocity), you will find:
- An explanation of bootstrapping and tips to make it work for you as you grow your start-up.
- A glossary of growth equity investment types and terms.
- Links to external resources for bootstrappers, among others.
- Case studies of some of our successful founder-led companies, like Cramer Systems, Chipidea and Medefinance.
- White papers, articles and presentations (more to come) on key topics of interest to us, like SaaS business models, sales productivity metrics, and bootstrapping techniques.
- Our series of interviews with entrepreneurs who were successful in using little external capital to deliver great returns to themselves and their investors, starting with John Craton of Cramer Systems, and Greg Gianforte of RightNow Technologies.
So please bookmark our site and come back often for more news and resources. It's still a work in progress, so please don't hesitate to send me your comments or suggestions for future thought pieces.
I salute you. It is a good thing to talk about bootstrapping. It is an EVEN BETTER THING to do something about it.
Well done!
REG CROWDER
International Investing (A Google Knol)
http://knol.google.com/k/reg-crowder/international-investing/6dyptd3yjxyq/2
Posted by: REG CROWDER | August 04, 2008 at 07:49