Vote For Your Favorite SF Co-Working Space

Add comment June 27th, 2011

As of June 2011, pariSoma followed by NextSpace San Francisco got the most votes for Co-working Office Space.

Take the new poll and give your recommendations on co-working spaces in San Francisco.

More polls

Resources For Bootstrappers – June 2011

Add comment June 8th, 2011

First-time entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley may have a million questions about incorporation, banking, administrative tools, insurance, renting out office space, etc. Bootstrappers has collated links to blog posts which may answer or point entrepreneurs to resources for this.

Banks

• Selecting a Business Bank
• Silicon Valley Banks

Setting Up Office

• Recommendations Of Co-Working Spaces
• Used Office Furniture
• Business Card Printers

Insurance: Click Here

Incorporation: Click Here

Web and Software Tools

• Domain Names
• Webmaster Tools
• User Feedback Tools
• Anti-Virus

Matt Cameron on Making Connections at a Bootstrapper Breakfast

Add comment May 26th, 2011

This is an excerpt from this interview with Matt Cameron of Corporate Catapult by Gareth Rose of iPitch. Matt highlights the value of the connections that he made at several Bootstrappper Breakfasts.

When I reached out to Gareth to get his permission to use this excerpt I asked him what iPitch was and he said “IPitch is an online community which educates and connects Australian entrepreneurs to help them startup and grow their businesses.”

Hat Tip to Ron Fredericks of LectureMaker for splicing together the excerpt.

George Grellas on Deferring Legal Fees

Add comment May 21st, 2011

George Grellas posted the following in answer to a question on Hacker News about deferring legal fees.  Like all of his writing it’s well thought out and based on a wealth of practical experience. It’s posted here with his permission

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Be cautious about deferred fees in dealing with lawyers. These have their legitimate role in the world of startups but, as with any other form of “easy credit,” they can wind up costing you far more in the long run than if you simply negotiate good rates or fixed fee amounts for work you have at hand.

For example, this piece discusses fee deferrals up to $30K. How would this work?

A typical deferred-fee deal provides that a startup will get corporate legal services of up to x amount that are deferred for some fixed time (say, 6 months) or until the company does its first funding at some minimum amount (say, $1 million), whichever comes first. In exchange, the startup gives the law firm a small piece of equity for the credit extension. If the startup fails in its business, the founders are not personally liable for the cost of the legal services and the law firm eats the loss (this is the credit risk it takes for which it gets equity in exchange). If the startup does not fail, the bill comes due in time and must be paid.

Now, a few observations from one who has done such deals many times over from a lawyer perspective:

1. The deferred-fee deal is a beautiful fit for the type of go-for-broke, hope-to-massively-scale company that will depend heavily on VC funding. You team up with a few co-founders, set your company in motion, and let it fly. You get heavily diluted up front when the VC funding comes in at $5 million and up, the burn rate for the company is high, and you go all out with a prestige team to build that billion dollar company (or at least hundreds of millions). You hire a law firm that bills $500/hr and up even for green attorneys and that works in teams. A simple company formation is $5K and up; your convertible note round is $5K to $10K and up; your Series A round is $50K to $60K and up. And, if it all works, all this gets paid from VC money. If it flops, you owe nothing. In a way, then, this is a risk-free way as a founder to go for broke in launching an ambitious venture.
2. Now consider a bootstrap venture or an angel-funded venture where the founders delay outside funding until they can build a credible pre-money valuation in hopes of minimizing dilution. Unlike the VC-funded case, you will here want to be much more cautious about what the legal services will cost. In most such companies, it is easy to get through the first 6 months of the company’s history (a typical deferral period) without coming anywhere close to spending $30K on a legal budget. Company formation can easily be done in the $2K-$3K range for the vast majority of such companies; bridge notes for $3K or so; Series A often for $5K to $10K. Maybe you also need Terms of Service and other miscellaneous items (e.g., trademark applications). Thus, if you add up all the typical legal needs of such a venture, you might get up to the $10K range in the normal case if you spend your money wisely.
3. The temptation, then, with a deferred-fee deal is to spend on legal matters with greater abandon given that you are using “easy credit.” This made sense historically under the VC model. It makes less sense under the modern angel model and even less sense for a company that is going the purely bootstrap route.
4. When it comes to deferred-fee deals, then, it is important to count the real cost. It may be a good step for your company but make sure the fit is right for your venture. A decade ago, this was a near-ideal arrangement for most startups with quality founding teams. Today, it makes sense for some but probably not for most quality startups.
5. Bottom line: if a deferred-fee deal looks attractive, then, by all means do it. Just don’t treat it as an axiomatic good. Like most easy-credit arrangements, the ultimate cost to your company (even if not to you personally) may be quite a bit higher than what it might otherwise be if you focus purely on the market cost of the services.

Watch your dollars and especially when someone offers you something that seems to be all upside (when it is not).

Online Event Registration

Add comment May 10th, 2011

What Makes A Start-Up Tick?

Add comment May 7th, 2011

The key to any successful start-up is belief in your idea, a good execution plan and consistency. The single most important but often overlooked quality in any successful entrepreneur is consistency.

Here are some tips to help you maintain consistency in carrying out your tasks:

• Prepare goals with timelines.
• Make sure the timelines are realistic.
• Write a to-do list for each day and prioritize it. One is likely to get more work done when they  have the checklist in writing.
• Carry out tasks on your to-do list.
• Combine tasks which are alike. Schedule time when you make all the phone calls, all emails, etc.
• Focus on one task at a time. When working on one project, let your phone calls go to voice mail.
• Share your goals and timelines with friends and family. You will more likely try and stick to them when you share them.

One of the most effective time management is having checklists for tasks that you do on a regular basis. Checklists for simple tasks can increase the quality of the end result to a great extent and lend consistency to what you do, a key attribute to running a business.

Here are samples for possible checklists you might want to have for your business.

Checklist For Writing and Publishing a New Blog Post

1. Spellcheck
2. Linkcheck
3. Grammar Check
4. Mention sources
5. Title and Date
6. Make sure the text is broken into paragraphs as appropriate

Checklist For Conferences You Wish To Speak At

1. What is your motive to speak-marketing your product,service, gain credibility, etc
2. Which area would be speak at or do you have the time and budget for? In california, on the east coast, etc
3. Depending on your motive and the geography,shortlist conferences. Also make sure to look at topics spoken at the conferences and make sure they are in line with your strategy
4. After shortlisting conferences, make sure you have the following data in a organized and sortable manner: Conference date, location, address, possible speaking topics, deadline to submit speaking proposals, contact name.
5. Have a short bio of yourself and a picture
6. Prepare a short para on the topics you wish to talk about

Do share what your opinions on this.

Health Insurance Providers for Start-Up Employees

Add comment April 20th, 2011

Our fellow bootstrappers have some comments about health insurance providers for employees of your start-up.

It is prudent to separate payroll and benefits providers. There are many insurance brokers and as with everything, it is better to go to them through referrals. You need to sort through what is offered and what you want to manage on your own for the best available price. Choose providers who offer good support after you choose plans for your company with them.

Some health insurance providers that came up:

• Johnson & Dugan They are good HR managers and offer good support.

• ehealth.com: Their offering is good in terms of price and service.

• Surepayroll: For payroll and benefits. Great at integrating benefit costs into the employee’s paycheck. They also sell health insurance and 401k administration.

• Sequoia BENEFITS: A broker that is not related to the VC. They will provide you with a free customized web page which has all the benefits information for your employees if you’re big enough.

Credits
Betty Kayton
Carl Ludewig Ludewig Multimedia
Donna West DW Business Consulting
Steve Hogan
Leslie Murdock Murdock Martell, Inc.

Corporate Catapult Blog Offers Good Tips For Bootstrappers Too

Add comment April 6th, 2011

Matt Cameron, who attends our San Francisco breakfasts, recently launched his new startup, Corporate Catapult aimed at career planning and mangement by employees. For an interview with Matt see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnQ-fsWrBIo

He writes a companion blog at that also has good advice for bootstrappers. One recent post on “deadlines and lists” at
is particularly appropriate. Some excerpts [with my comments in square brackets]:

One of the key differences between the people at the top and the “also rans” is consistency and aspiration.

1. Set goals with strict deadlines: Whether it be a competition, an academic exam or an arbitrary date selected by you, having deadlines is one of the surest ways to get things done. Set goals that are a stretch. When you have a large task to accomplish (write an opinion, launch a product, achieve a sales quota, design something) there is nothing more effective than breaking this task down into mini-milestones that have strict deadlines. [Note: A Goal Without a Deadline is a Wish]
2. Make yourself accountable: If you don’t have an external deadline for a task or objective (eg your daily mini-tasks), then do what I do and tell someone else what you are going to achieve. [Note: this works both within your own team and taking advantage of groups like Bootstrappers Breakfast.]3) Make a checklist: There are some things that we have to do on a repeatable basis and as you gain experience, you will figure out what the best steps are. Something I did very early on was make a checklist of things to do.

Matt cites Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article on medical checklists and his book “The Checklist Manifesto” for further inspiration for developing checklists. I think Frequently Asked Questions lists and checklists are two keys to saving time.

• What checklists have you developed in your startup that have saved you time or prevented errors?
• What processes are you doing repeatedly but unreliably that would benefit from a checklist?

Start-Up Bootcamp

Add comment March 21st, 2011

GloMantra, the company behind, myBantu – Online Virtual Personal Assistance is Khanderao Kand’s second start-up. During the early stages of the start-up, Khanderao faced numerous issues on which a lot of time was spent. The issues ranged widely from registering a legal entity, forming a company structure, finding investors, deciding terms and percentages for investors and so on and so forth.

Khanderao believes that the success of a start-up does not depend on such formalities but on execution, team building, product development and launch and winning customers and their confidence.

He wished that he could consult someone on such matters and this motivated him to organize “Startup Bootcamp”. The aim of this Bootcamp is to help fellow entrepreneurs start their venture smoothly. This is being organized by Global Indian Technology Professionals Association (GITPRO). Khanderao floated GITPRO in 2009 to provide a networking platform for Indian origin professionals for professional and self development and thereby contribute to the community.

Startup Bootcamp For Early Stage Startups and Would be Founders

Saturday 26th March 2011, 2:30pm-7:30pm
Topics include (see http://www.gitpro.org/siliconvalley.html for latest agenda)

• “Lessons Learned in Starting and Selling a Startup” by Shan Sinha, Founder-CEO of Docuverse acquired by Google
• “Building Product and Team with Focus and Right Startup DNA” by Edwin Khodabakchin, Serial Entrepreneur, CEO of Feedly. Sold Earlier Startup Collaxa to Oracle

Feet $25

Location: HP Oakroom Hall, Cupertino
19111 Pruneridge Ave,Building 48, Cupertino, CA

Silicon Valley Banks For Bootstrappers

Add comment March 3rd, 2011

We had a good discussion on the Bootstrappers Yahoo Groups about possible banks to open an account with for your business. Here is a round-up of the discussion.

The choice of bank for your business matters greatly. Even if you do not yet have institutional or angel funding, our fellow bootstrapper has recommend banking with one of the listed bank’s technology department. They may not lend to you right now, but they will understand your kind of business and may be helpful for advice, referrals to funding sources and contacts overseas and elsewhere. Banks that focus on retail, manufacturing, distribution (i.e. old economy) will not have loan officers that can do this for you. You should also consider the operations capability of your bank depending on your needs, i.e. foreign exchange, branch network etc.

The banks that our Bootstrappers are using for their business needs are as follows and they have some tips on them:

* Traditional route for technology startups:
o Bridge Bank
o Comerica Bank
o Silicon Vally Bank
o Square1Bank
* Bootstrappers often just use regular banks
o Chase
o HSBC
o US Bank
o Wells Fargo
* But the most common answer was actually credit unions. They usually have no fees and better interest rates.
o Keypoint
o Tech CU
o Valley Credit Union

Another point brought up during the discussion is the presence of a number of venture lenders that operate providing working capital and equipment financing to startup companies, again focused on those that have raised venture capital. One lender that was mentioned was Western Technology Investment. There are many others as well.

Contributors
Leonard Greenberg Assistyx
Massimo Paolini MPThree Consulting
Carl Ludwig Ludewig Multimedia
Herman A. White Tech CU
Leslie Murdock Murdock Martell
Hemant Thakkar Trusttone Communications Inc
Rick Kadet
Susan Luschas