Bootstrapped Web

Brian Casel: 00:09

Okay. Let's do this. Hello, bootstrappers. Welcome to Bootstrapped Web, the show for business owners like you and me who believe that to get to where we're going, we have to learn by doing. I'm Brian Casel.

Brian Casel: 00:19

You can follow me on Twitter at Castjam or on my blog, castjam.com. The topic for today's episode is mistakes and lessons learned during the first year of bootstrapping a startup. I just created a free report telling the stories of 10 mistakes that I made during the first year of bootstrapping my startups and the lessons that I took away from from each of those mistakes. So here on this episode, I'm going to run through the first three of those, year one mistakes. And if you'd like to read through all 10 of them, you can download your copy of this free report right now by going to castjam.com/mistakes.

Brian Casel: 01:02

Before I get into these three mistakes, let's let's, step back a little bit. Now, I hope that if you're reading through these lessons that I learned, the hard way while bootstrapping my startups, I hope that you'll, kind of I hope that that that'll help you avoid some of these same pitfalls. But more importantly, I want you to give some serious thought about the path that you're currently on. What are the mistakes that you're making right now? And if your answer is you're not making any mistakes, well, that right there is a mistake in itself.

Brian Casel: 01:38

You should be making mistakes because that's what learning by doing is all about, making mistakes and then soaking in a valuable lesson. And then of course, not making the same mistake twice. So I hope that more than anything, this report will help you or inspire you to take a hard look at your business and look back on the previous months and years and pinpoint a few things that you could have done differently. You know, think about why why would you do them differently? How would you do them differently?

Brian Casel: 02:07

And how are you gonna connect correct it next time around? You know, I I really believe in in being very critical of yourself and having an open mind about that. I just think that's the best way to get better and step up your game. Okay. So here are the first three mistakes that I came up with as I took a hard look back on my first year bootstrapping my startups.

Brian Casel: 02:35

So mistake number one, I invested my own money in the wrong places. So as I started building my my SaaS business, I knew that the majority of the investment would be in the form of my own time or overtime, if you will. But I also set aside $5,000 of my own cash, which I had had from my consulting business at the time. So I set aside $55,000 and I invested and and my plan was to invest that into getting the business off the ground and up and running. That 5,000 quickly grew closer to 8,000, maybe even a little bit more than that.

Brian Casel: 03:18

And and that was before I had any paying customers. So, know, right off the bat, no revenue coming in $8,000 in the hole. But my mistake wasn't so much the amount of personal cash investment that I made. I was kind of okay with that. I was it went a little bit over my initial budget, but okay.

Brian Casel: 03:42

My mistake was how I allocated those funds. I failed to recognize which things I was really good at and which things I was just mediocre about mediocre at. I mean, basically, you know, just a hack. So if you ask me which skill comes most naturally to me, I I would say design. Yet, for some reason, I chose to hire designers to mock up the first version of my site and to create my logo.

Brian Casel: 04:14

Meanwhile, I spent most of my time, So while those while the designers that I had hired are were working on those things, I was spending my time, kind of tangled up in in code and, just, you know, figuring out how to how to do things. I mean, I can code to I I can code some things okay. Basically, I can code enough to get by, but I don't do it particularly well and and certainly not very fast. In other words, I could spend a week figuring out how to code something that a seasoned developer could whip up in probably an hour. So I failed to distinguish between something that was a mere ability, coding, and my true strength, was design.

Brian Casel: 05:01

On top of that, the designer in me ended up redoing almost all of the design work that I had spent that $8,000 on. So looking back, that cash would have been much better spent accelerating the development work, hiring a developer to get those things tackled, while I spent my time doing the design work. Because it's so much more comfortable to me to do the design work, so I could have done that quicker and more efficiently had I done it myself. I also would have liked to set a little bit more cash aside to put towards some of the earlier marketing campaigns, like the paid marketing campaigns. But since I burned through that cash so quickly in the beginning, that wasn't an option.

Brian Casel: 05:49

So the big lesson learned here was distinguish between your mere abilities and your true strengths, and then allocate your your resources accordingly. Okay. So mistake number two. I tackled too many tasks all at once. During the first year of my products business, I made the mistake of loading up my plate with any and all tasks that flew my way.

Brian Casel: 06:17

I would jump from task to task haphazardly with no consideration of setting an order of priorities. When a customer emails with an urgent request or a question, I got right on it right away. When I came up with a really cool idea for a new feature or something, I basically just dropped everything that I was working on and I started focusing on that. Or when I listened to Mixergy every day when I go out and walk my dog, maybe it's like an inspiring interview or an inspiring course and they're talking about some new marketing strategy. I would come home and completely change my whole marketing strategy on a whim, just because I was so inspired by one interview that I heard one day.

Brian Casel: 07:06

So, I was just doing a lot of different things and staying very, very busy, but I wasn't making clear progress towards a definite goal. I was just kind of running in all these different directions all at once. It kind of felt like I was running in place actually. So, I finally realized this mistake and I built a system around how I choose which things to tackle and when. So, I made a point on the first of the month to list out three or four big things that I plan to accomplish in the next thirty days.

Brian Casel: 07:37

And then I set my weekly and daily to do lists according to that plan that I made. I even went a step further and I started making a six month plan. So I started listing out even bigger things that I that I plan to accomplish in the next half of a year. And so when I have that that bigger plan in place, then then as I look at what I'm gonna work on today, I can ask myself, well, how does this factor into my six month plan? So it really that's a good way to keep my priorities straight.

Brian Casel: 08:09

So the big lesson learned here, plan your tasks for the next month and the next six months so that you can prioritize today accordingly. And the third mistake that I'll talk about here today is I didn't seek outside advice. So as a bootstrapper, I'm very much of the do it yourself mindset Or better put, the figure it out myself mindset. Right? But that can only get you so far.

Brian Casel: 08:39

And in fact, that kind of mindset can often lead you down the wrong path. I mean, sure, there are a lot of resources online such as blogs, courses, e books, and so on. And those provide a healthy dose of education. And they're certainly, really useful for a lot of things. And you can also learn a lot from getting your hands dirty and tackling things yourself, or as I call it, learning by doing.

Brian Casel: 09:06

But there's one more resource which is even more valuable than all of those, and that's learning from the experience of others. So after a year of trying to do and learn everything all by myself, I finally started making a point to personally reach out to folks who are doing similar things to what I'm doing and asking to pick their brains a little bit. So I would ask specific questions and find out what they learned from the things that they've been experimenting with. I also joined a weekly mastermind group. I joined about two or three months ago.

Brian Casel: 09:43

That's a group with five other online SaaS business owners, where we really kind of just support each other and advise each other about things that are challenging us in our business, and we're sharing what we're learning and things. So it's just a really great support group. So building that support network of talented and experienced, smart, helpful entrepreneurs, that has really helped me work through some of the difficult challenges and helped me find clarity much quicker than, when I try to work through all those things, all by myself, sitting here alone in my home office with my dog. I love my dog, but he's not so great at giving advice on business, I'll tell you that much. So the big lesson here, mistake number three is it's never too early to start building your support network, especially when you're a solo bootstrapper like I am.

Brian Casel: 10:46

So those were the first three mistakes that I was able to learn, during my first year bootstrapping my startups. And I hope that gave you, something to chew on. And if you'd like to read all 10 of the first year mistakes and the lessons that came away from them, go ahead and download your free report by going to castjam.com/mistakes. And stay tuned next Monday and every Monday for another episode of Bootstrapped Web. I've got some amazing guests joining me, in the next few weeks.

Brian Casel: 11:17

So definitely stay tuned for that. Alright. Take care, guys.