Shawn Hessinger: Bootstrapme.com was initiated essentially through a series of conversations in early 2006 both by e-mail and telephone with Creative Weblogging executive editor Anita Campbell. I had created a small business ideas blog called “The Upstart Entrepreneur” after becoming frustrated with seeking financing for some of my own projects. The concept was simply to have a place on the Net where I could list some of my business ideas without worrying about financing in the hopes that if someone were really interested in investing in one of them they could contact me and we could develop a more detailed business plan. I got the inspiration to do this from an article at Inc.com about Right Now Technologies founder and CEO Greg Gianforte, who started his company out of a spare bedroom cold calling customers to pitch a software application idea that hadn’t even been created yet. I mentioned the Gianforte story in my blog and Anita suggested building a how-to blog around the bootstrapping concept specifically, the idea of starting a business with little or no outside investment.


Halil: Where did you get your daily blog inspiration from?

Shawn Hessinger: In the beginning and still to this day the blog is as much an education for me as for my readers. Ultimately an expert at anything began by simply asking a lot of questions. I had begun doing a lot of Internet research, and the blog continued this process. The difference was that as I found answers to some of my questions I had a place to document those answers and share them with others. I’ve also tried to include a participatory dimension to BootStrapMe.com, not only through online communities like the Bootstrapper’s Club on the MyBlogLog network, but also through my own experimentation with some of the concepts I’ve researched. I’ve launched two new enterprises the n10ah online music network and Seymore Ware (More) & Co., an online clothing store, using bootstrapping concepts, and, though both are in their very early stages, I have high hopes for them. I’ve shared the results of these ventures with visitors and also tried to talk to other entrepreneurs to add some real life experiences to the concepts I’ve been researching.

Shawn Hessinger: I’d say the goals of the blog are many, but they can probably be paired down considerably. I did a series of posts recently inspired partly by Guy Kawasaki’s book “The Art of the Start” in which he recommends creating mantras instead of mission statements for new business ventures simply because a short mantra, something as simple as a single sentence or phrase, is generally easier for a team or a single entrepreneur to retain and follow through on. I went a little farther and suggested that for the bootstrap entrepreneur a mantra might be better to start with than a long complex business plan. A bit of a leap, but I like to push the envelope from time to time. Anyway, I guess my first answer to your question would be to list a series of goals: to help other entrepreneurs learn about the possibilities of bootstrapping a business start-up, to expel the myth of needing huge amounts of capital, government or non-profit funding to launch your great idea, to try to use some of these concepts in my daily entrepreneurship efforts and share the results. But if I think in terms of mantras for this blog, I guess mine might be “Starting a business revolution.” It really incorporates on many levels what this project is about.

Shawn Hessinger: Nope. I’ve been a newspaper journalist for 16 years, and one of the things I find most frustrating about that gig is that the freedom of the press we hear so much about in the U.S. is the freedom of the guy who owns the press. Well, there’s nothing particularly wrong with that and I’m not advocating you shouldn’t have control of your own business, but I’m an ideas guy and it’s hard sometimes to just use those ideas for the benefit of another person or company. One of the great things about blogging is that even with relationships like the one I have with Creative Weblogging, the whole thing feels much more like a partnership than an employee, employer situation and right down to our business relationship that’s what it is. So what I say on the blog is what I want to say not what someone else thinks I should. That’s not to suggest that there aren’t certain subjects I wouldn’t write about on BootAtrapMe.com simply because they have nothing to do with bootstrapping or entrepreneurship, but that’s getting into the next question, I believe.

Shawn Hessinger: Sure. I’m a multifaceted guy with a lot of ideas, thoughts and opinions. And, of course, questions I don’t yet have the answer to. And not all of them have to do with business or entrepreneurship. So, as I said earlier, naturally there are thoughts and observations and interests I have that don’t quite fit BootStrapMe.com. That’s one of the reasons I’ve started other blogs too. And BootStrapMe.com is pretty focused on its own particular niche, so I’m not going to write about existentialist philosophy. But none of that is because I feel there are things I can’t write. And in the field of entrepreneurship I’ve been known to hold some pretty strong opinions and to express them pretty freely.

Shawn Hessinger: Well, I have to say that I have a kind of fragmented approach to other blogs and more often than not I have a greater tendency to place a link to a particular post I found interesting in my Favorites than to store up a couple of blogs in a reader to return to constantly. If I see enough interesting posts from the same blog or site I may begin to return more and more to see if there’s anything else interesting there.

Shawn Hessinger: 1. Guy Kawasaki’s “How to Change the World” http://blog.guykawasaki.com/ ,
2. Darren Barefoot’s “Darrenbarefoot.com”,
3. Ben Yoskovitz’s “Instigator Blog” http://www.instigatorblog.he’s also got a new one called “Startup Spark” http://startupspark.com/ with b5 media that shows a lot of promise.) Jeez, I just realized two of the top three are Canadians. Who’d have thought?

Shawn Hessinger: From these three guys I’d say I learned the most. From Guy the idea of entrepreneur as blogger and vice versa and of organizing posts as chunks of wisdom, either stuff you’ve learned or stuff you believe, and always in an attractive top 10 format that encourages reposts. From Darren, who I’ve probably been reading the longest, the idea of what blog commentary is all about, of how global media can still be very local in focus (I’m not certain whether this would work the same where I live as it does in Vancouver where everyone seems to have a blog and a high on-line visibility) and of the new media professional as participant rather than mere observer. From Ben, who is the only one of the three I’ve had any real contact with, the importance of using community and conversation to expand a blog’s possibilities. I’ll never forget participating in Ben’s “What did you learn in 2006” and other great writing projects with many other fellow bloggers. I even won a free autographed book from one of Ben’s associates for taking part!  I also learned the importance of focusing what you have to say, a hard lesson in a publishing medium that encourages a very free wheeling approach. Early on Ben split one of his blogs, “I’ve got news for you”, based around some of his humorous on-line enterprises, into two with the “Instigator Blog” handling more of what he had to say about business (though often still with humorous touches).

Shawn Hessinger: I’ve found the most important thing is developing conversations. Sure, it’s important to ping other sites when you update posts, particularly the ones that you know have been regularly linking to you and sending you traffic. On-line communities like MyBlogLog can also be an important tool because you can network with other bloggers and visitors in a format specifically designed to let people discover new blogs and the people who are reading them. But I’m still a believer that with all these tools conversations are most important. Commenting on the observations of other bloggers, inviting them and your readers to comment on yours. It’s a scary thing coming from a print journalism background because at a newspaper most of the time when people call you or write a letter it’s because they’ve got a problem with what you’ve written. So there’s this visceral response. Oh, boy. What’s this guy’s problem. You’ve got to get over that and see how comment can ad to the discussion. (Doing interviews like this one doesn’t hurt either, by the way.)  

Shawn Hessinger: To learn and to contribute. Really, I think those are two of the most important qualities that have been lost in modern journalism, and the things which create the most interest. Increasingly, much communications media has become one way with feedback as an irritating component that should be screened out at all costs. Honestly, I’ve gotten some of my best ideas from readers even if I functioned as a catalyst. I hope that participation is ongoing and I really believe it is what brings people back again and again.

Shawn Hessinger: Greg Gianforte says there are lots of things a budding entrepreneur needs to get started on a new venture, but money isn’t one of them. I think in a day and age when the Small Business Administration and government economic development programs have made entrepreneurs into pan handlers walking from department to department and ultimately to the tax payers with their hand out, the message to business people ought to be changed. Entrepreneurs ought to be able to make money not walk around asking for it. And they ought to be able to do it by creating something of real value that customers can see instantly. Not something that has to be forced down their throat with an expensive advertising campaign.