Principles  of  Bootstrapping  Craig  Bloem  CEO  &  Founder    

         

ENET  Panel  -­‐  Innova>ve  Ways  to  Bootstrap  Your  Company  October  6th,  2015    

   

   

Craig  Bloem  CEO  &  Founder  of  LogoMix  

Over  20  years  of  building  successful  internet  companies  

ü  Marke>ng  in  a  few  clicks  

ü  Over  20,000,000  users  a  year  

Marke>ng  and  Branding  Made  Easy!  

Develop  Partnerships  

ü  Companies  with  the  same  customers  ü  Great  source  of  revenue    ü  Poten>al  marke>ng  opportunity      

 

Simple  Tests  and  Validated  Learning's  

ü  Get  your  product  out  to  market  yesterday    

ü  Push  minimum  viable  product  ü  Test  assump>ons  ü  Rinse  and  repeat  crea>ng  a  

culture  of  tes>ng  

 

 

Leverage  Technology  &  Outsourcing  

ü  Do  more  with  less    

ü  Faster  to  market  

ü  Improve  your  product  or  service  

ü  Informa>on  to  make  beVer  decisions  

ü  Only  build  core  technologies  that  provide  differen>a>on  

Func>on  over  Form  

Relentlessly  Execute  

ENET Panel - Innovative Ways to Bootstrap Your Company

ü  Most  businesses  should  be  99%  Execu>on  and  1%  Strategy    

ü  Your  strategy  will  probably  change  with  real  informa>on  

ü  If  your  not  execu>ng  you  are  not  collec>ng  data  to  make  decisions  

ü  Embrace  the  business  not  the  idea        

 

Culture  and  People  

ü  Drive  a  shared  way  of  doing  things  

ü  The  right  people  is  cri>cal    

ü  Shared  values  and  approaches  

ü  Make  changes  and  communicate  as  fast  as  possible  

ü  Your  gut  is  rarely  wrong  on  people  

ü  You  will  make  mistakes  Culture

•  Execute,  get  shit  done  and  drive  change  

•  Metrics  &  results-­‐driven  environment  

•  Fun,  eclec>c,  posi>ve  place  to  work  

•  Be  scrappy  and  do  more  with  less  

•  Hire  great,  fun  &  smart  people  

•  Build  open  and  honest  rela>onships  

•  Strive  to  always  do  the  right  thing  

Favorite  Books    

•  The  Four  Steps  to  the  Epiphany  by  Steve  Blank  

•  The  Innovator's  Dilemma  by  Clayton  M.  Christensen  

•  The  Lean  Startup  by  Eric  Ries  

•  The  Hard  Thing  About  Hard  Things  by  Ben  Horowitz  

•  The  7  Habits  of  Highly  Effec>ve  People  by  Stephen  R.  Covey  

•  Straight  from  the  Gut  by  Jack  Welch    

•  Good  to  Great  by  Jim  Collins  

•  Execu>on  by  Larry  Bossidy  

•  Only  the  Paranoid  Survive  by  Andrew  S.  Grove  

•  Zero  to  One  by  Peter  Thiel    

•  Founders  at  Work  by  Jessica  Livingston    

 

Twitter: @craigbloem Slides: slideshare.net/craigbloem