Page 24 - The Bootstrapper Bible

ChangeThis And I can guarantee that if you donʼt feel like giving up today, there will definitely be days when you do feel like giving up. Which brings me to the most important, most concrete, most useful piece of advice in the whole manifesto. Simple, but indispensable: Donʼt give up. Surviving is succeeding. Youʼre smarter than most people who have started their own busi- nesses, and smarter still than those who have succeeded. Itʼs not about what you know or even, in the end, about what you do. Success is persistence. Set realistic expectations. Donʼt give up. By redefining the game and playing on its home field, it trounced companies valued at more than half a billion dollars. YOU CAN’T WIN IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE GAME. A lot of this manifesto is about survival. A true bootstrapper worries about survival all the time. Why? Because if you fail, itʼs back to company cubicles, to work you do for someone else until you can get enough scratched together to try again. Bootstrapping isnʼt always rational. For some of us (like me), itʼs almost an addiction. The excitement and sheer thrill of building something overwhelms the desire to play it safe. This is an manifesto about how to make the odds work in your favor, how to keep playing until you win. | iss. 6.01 | i | U | X | + | h 24/103 f