Page 58 - The Bootstrapper Bible

ChangeThis AN ACCOUNTING ASIDE Later, when we talk about accountants, Iʼll go into this. But for now, letʼs be clear: Revenue is revenue when you see the money. Expenses are expenses when you pay the money. Cash is king and thatʼs what you keep track of. Meaning: If you do some work but donʼt get paid for 90 days, you record the revenue as coming in 90 days, not on the day that you finished the work. Be a superrealist when it comes time to do revenue projections. In fact, be a pessimist. Not built in to any of the numbers youʼve just listed is money for you to live on. Thatʼs on purpose. Once you realize that changing the amount of money you need to live on can dra- matically increase your chances of success, you have an important choice to make: How much are you willing to sacrifice for the business? One surefire way to determine if a bootstrapper is going to succeed or not is to check out how she changes her lifestyle when she starts the business. If everything is first-class—the office, the car, the mortgage, the vacations—then my bet is that the entrepreneur is too focused on taking from the business and not nearly focused enough on building it. Jeff Bezos was a mover and shaker on Wall Street, working at the intersection of computer science and finance, when he decided to start an Internet business. Instead of maintaining his lifestyle in one of Americaʼs most expensive cities, he packed up his car and drove with his wife to a cheaper city with cheaper staffing costs where he pursued a much cheaper lifestyle. This decision was probably the most important in the success of Amazon.com. Without it, he | iss. 6.01 | i | U | X | + | Send this to a friend. CLICK HERE. h 58/103 f