16 lessons necessary to make entrepreneur succeed from zero

"Bootstrapping (bootstrapping)" which entrepreneurs from scratch with no funds is a tough world where there are only one company in 10 companies that succeeds. In such a situation, WordPress hosting service "Kinsta"Tom Zsomborgi who succeeded in bootstrapping as a co-founder of the company released 16 things important to successful bootstrapping on the official blog. Hints useful for every entrepreneur, not limited to the IT field, are interspersed.

16 Lessons Learned Bootstrapping Kinsta from 0 to 7 - Figure in Revenue
https://kinsta.com/blog/bootstrapping-startup/

◆ About Kinsta
Kinsta, founded with only four people, has grown into a company with revenue of seven figures (hundreds of millions of yen) in four years from its founding. Although Kinsta, a great success of bootstrapping, Zsomborgi says that they were out of the ordinary and excelled. It is said that whether people who do not have money and no special ability can succeed in bootstrapping depends on "how much they want to succeed".

Most of the people who have succeeded in entrepreneurs talk about their own success experiences, talking about bloody efforts, bribery over the days of bitterness suffering from failures and successes in success Zsomborgi thinks there is nothing. For that reason, those who have seen and experienced someone's success experience seemed to be "easy thing" possible for anyone to start by starting up from scratch, an example of failing to actually start up is not behind But, of course, bootstrapping is not sweet.

Kinsta, founded by four people in 2013, four people co-founders brought up the money they had on hand and got a success without receiving funding from venture capital. Mr. Zsomborgi said that he would like to own 100% of the company they made, refusing to deny it that there are many benefits about companies that grow at a stretch with funds from investors Because I was thinking, I narrowed my wisdom and earned money and have grown themselves. The most important lessons learned so far to nurture Kinsta are as follows.

◆ 01: Try to build "brand" from day one
If you made a company fighting in the Blue Ocean where there are few competitors, that is a great thing, Zsomborgi says. However, Blue Ocean where there is no competitor must pay attention to the possibility that profitability may not be expected without demand for services in the first place.

Most people will start a business in the Red Ocean where excessive competition is spreading. In the Red Ocean where the huge enterprises that have been established continue to demonstrate superiority over many years of competition, large enterprises have funds, a solid customer base, established social media and a huge marketing budget. Mr. Zsomborgi thinks that the only weapon that does not have any of these elements can compete with a huge enterprise is "brand".


Even if you provide excellent service, there are not many people who spend money on start-up companies that are not trusted. In business, Zsomborgi says that it is important to provide services as a "brand", it is important to have a distinctive presence by having a different name from other services. And Zsomborgi who says that the brand is a technique that can differentiate it from other companies thinks that "Brand building should continue building from the day that entrepreneurs started", and it is the company name that brands appear most about. There are many examples of "general term + keyword" like company name as "Denver design agency", but in order to make a brand, you should look for a unique and short company name.

◆ 02: It is the most difficult to get the first 100 customers
Even if you have excellent service, there is a sad reality that no customers know the service.Whiteboard Friday's Rand FishkinAccording to Mr., "It is necessary to visit 7.5 site visits in order to run the service free trial". It can be said that the starting point of gathering people to try out the service for free and to know the value is the highest wall.

It is "launching a blog" that I recommend in several ways done by Kinsta. The blog was effective to show that it has high expertise, to appeal that the service is top notch, content marketing was effective.

Also, providing a free account is extremely important as it gains valuable feedback. He also said he should not hesitate to use e-mail marketing. Zsomborgi says that he continues to send e-mails that he has built relationships with business owners and bloggers by e-mail to create the first customer.

According to Zsomborgi, "the time required to obtain the first ten customers and then the time needed to get customers to 100 people is about the same".

◆ 03: Hire someone with the best ability, while saving money
Due to the nature of Kinsta's service called hosting service, the client was around the world and had to provide support 24 hours a day, 365 days. So Kinsta said that it was to recruit employees from all over the world to cover time zones around the world.

The merit of looking for employees from all over the world is not just time zone issues. According to Zsomborgi, excellent people who can be found luckily locally are limited, and they are forced to look for people from all over the world. In the IT service like Kinsta, it seems that it was possible to work with full remote because people with high abilities are able to work in a productive manner even from home by performing time management.

Also, thanks to the absence of large office space in urban areas, the benefits of greatly reducing expenses were very great. In addition, he seems to be able to adopt an excellent person with much lower salary than salary on the West Coast of the USA.

Zsomborgi says "exactly this street", tweets showing the benefits of looking for peers from all over the world to do remote work.


And Zsomborgi adds a lesson that "If you want to succeed, you should hire a smarter person than yourself".

◆ 04: Early market launch of MVP (practical minimum product)
What is important for launching products is the product "Minimum Viable Product (MVP)" which has the minimum necessary functions to satisfy initial customers. The time to release the product will be delayed as soon as you add features as well. It is a huge advantage to be able to get quick feedback from valuable customers in the early state where the ability to manage customers is lacking by quickly releasing and providing in a minimum condition.

Mr. Zsomborgi says that perfectionists may dislike MVP, but MVP is essential. Entrepreneurs are doing "long-term games", getting feedback and getting feedback early, learning marketing, continuing to improve problems by modifying marketing leads to "victory" It is said that.

◆ 05: Employment is careful, abandonment is quick
Zsomborgi thinks that it is nothing but an "employee" that will be the center of the company. Especially for startups without funds, employees may be said to be all of capital.

The biggest reason why not only Kinsta but also most other companies get "bad talent" is that they did not select candidates carefully. It is inevitable that you will need to hire people quickly without lack of time, but the probability of inevitably making a mistake will be high.

If you find that you do not have a corporate culture or a team culture, "You must say goodbye as soon as possible," Zsomborgi says. Zsomborgi says "as soon as possible" within several days after realizing that it does not work. The team that does not have abundant money should not have unmatched employees. Zsomborgi says that it is not meaningful to "reform" its employees, and it should be said that "bye" is barely out.

◆ 06: Focus on revenue
To make bootstrapping a success, you need to generate revenue. It is because it is a technique that can keep on living only by continuing to raise profits when managing a business with hard-earned income.

What is important to succeed in corporate management is "to control expenses as much as possible" and that all business is up to negotiation. According to Zsomborgi, when the budget is limited at the start-up, you should not be ashamed to tell it clearly and offer a discount. Zsomborgi says that if you actually offer discounts you will be able to understand that surprisingly many companies will respond and that they will provide alternative alternatives.


As you make a profit, how to allocate it becomes a problem. In the case of Kinsta, he seems to reinvest in the profit obtained as much as possible, I constantly hire new members, and are always putting in promotion for content creation and paying customers acquisition. Because it is not funded by venture capital, it seems advantageous that it is easy to reinvest investment.

◆ 07: I do not say "I can not"
In business, Zsomborgi thinks that the term "impossible," "I do not know," "I give up" should be removed from the dictionary. According to Mr. Zsomborgi, even if the situation which we face can not be solved strictly, there must be a solution. Because difficult situations always come, it is impossible to avoid it and should not get away.


It seems that there was a case that the account suspension procedure was taken from Stripe of online payment service due to illegal act that Kinsta can not control by himself at the startup of Kinsta. When asked Stripe to explain the circumstances and asked for the suspension of the account suspension procedure, he said that "the account is permanently closed and there is no way to reactivate again" that was a quick answer.

Changing the settlement service is not a work that can be done on a day or so, but for Kinsta it was a life and death problem, but the team took all steps and settled a solution. When writing the situation on the official blog and discussion started in the reddit startup community, Stripe who was afraid of bad reputation presented a solution. According to Zsomborgi, it seems that Kinsta could return to normal operation within 48 hours after feeling "there is no solution".

◆ 08: "9 o'clock - 17 o'clock style" give up
"In order to succeed, we can not hope for a general way of working" Starting at 9 o'clock and going home at 17 o'clock, "Zsomborgi asserts. It is necessary to be prepared to spend "crazy time" of sitting and supporting in front of the computer for 16 hours a day, forgetting the notion of year-end and new year holidays and holidays.

An unbelievable number of entrepreneurs say that they can build a new business just by working a few hours a day, but Zsomborgi said it is just an illusion and should not be trusted. Life of "Starting at 9 o'clock, returning home at 17 o'clock" is of course a wonderful way of working, but Zsomborgi says it is a way to give up if you aim for bootstrapping.

◆ 09: I will devote all the time
It is difficult to launch a new business on its own and to put it on track and it is required to devote all the time. It is impossible to do as a side job.

Zsomborgi cites as a good example that ConvertKit founder Nathan Barry has succeeded by giving up all to ConvertKit, giving up all the other work.


◆ 10: Tackle content marketing
There is no marketing budget on startup unless you are so lucky. Even if there were any, the budget should be very limited. There is no budget to do PPC campaigns, work on Facebook advertisements, or buy banners for famous blogs. However, Zsomborgi says that this does not mean that you can not disseminate your products, services and abilities.

Zsomborgi recommends "content marketing". Kinsta, who had no other choice on the first day of founding, seriously worked on the blog. Below graph is a screen shot of Google Analytics of traffic to Kinsta blog. It takes a lot of time for the traffic pace to increase.


Zsomborgi says it will take time to build content reputation. On top of that, it is not a blog post that is posted "2,000,000 everyday" which is "too generic, low in quantity, low in quality, does not provide unique value" every day, spends a lot of time researching themes, I think that you should continue posting only those that provide real value to the reader. Actually, Kinsta only posted two postings per month, it seems that organic traffic has increased by 571% in 13 months.

◆ 11: Focus on important things
There are many things to procrastinate "I will do this tomorrow", but everyone has experienced many cases that this is not realized. Work to raise margins is a long and time-consuming and often frighteningly boring task, but Zsomborgi says that it is a work that should be done as soon as possible. famous"Rules of 20-80It is important to understand.

The famous "A / B testZsomborgi points out that it should not be put in the A / B test because there are many cases where the number of samples is too small at the time of startup to be reliable.

◆ 12: weakness can be the biggest weapon
Small startups are often swallowed by huge competitors, as resources tend to be scarce and customer base is also weak. However, Mr. Zsomborgi thinks that because it is small, it has weapons that a giant company does not have.

Normally, updates that involve adding required features, changing the UI, implementing add-ons that affect many customers will require a period of several months. However, startups that are not tied to large-scale infrastructure can "quickly change".

Kinsta said that we were able to offer customers the upgrade to PHP 7 within a few days after the release of PHP 7. At that time, the news of the industry was only showing "the merit of upgrading to PHP 7", it was the strength of the weak enterprises that the competitors immediately introduced the upgrade work that they took over a year over the course of a year It is said that.


◆ 13: Join the community and make a network
In any field, there is a necessary expert, influencer, blogger. Zsomborgi thinks that they need to join the community where they are and make friends as much as possible.

Unfortunately, it is said that human beings can "not help others" as much as possible. There is nothing to do because everyone has to do and it is chased by time. However, it is important to build relationships by helping others. If you share the knowledge and expertise that you own, provide topics that make comfortable with familiar things, provide resources and data if possible, share other content on SNS and tackle newsletters, Zuzomborgi says that good deeds will be returned by 10 times.

Gary Vaynerchuk, who succeeded in the wine business, said "I retired" I am still in the process of building a network. The bootstrapper should not be lagging behind the already successful networked celebrities around the world.

Here's one of the secrets ... it's 10: 59 on a Sunday and I 'm hustling

- Gary Vaynerchuk (@ garyvee)May 1, 2017

◆ 14: Automation, automation, and automation
The key to pushing the business to the next level is "support" for customers who are increasingly demanding service. How much you can respond to customer's demand will affect the growth of the company. In order to introduce resources here, automation tools that can reduce human work burden should be thoroughly utilized. Kinsta automates at least 42 tasks even in 2017 alone, and he seems to automate anything that can be automated.

When paying money and using the service, users prefer "interaction with true human beings". In other words, we should never automate the parts that interact with our customers. It is important to automate the parts that can be handled with code base or programmable solution and focus on support.

◆ 15: I can not be misled by "brilliant headline"
If you are witnessing only the brilliant successes such as "dancing in news such as Techcrunch and VentureBeat" ◯ won hundreds of users "and" □ □ raised tens of billions ", it is a success story It may be easy and realistic, but the reality is not so.

Everyone loves to read and wants to share Most of the success stories should focus on "results". Do not forget the unexplained efforts behind its success. Zsomborgi says that media is often "one-sided" and that the way to success is not a single road.

From the left "what you think is going to happen" "what actually happens" "the wave of the entrepreneur's day"


◆ 16: Make a hobby
When I start to drive into business with the aim of bootstrapping, I am thinking about working 24 hours a day, 365 days with enthusiasm. However, it is difficult to keep that condition for a long time, and it will be "burned out" someday. So Mr. Zsomborgi thinks it is important to refresh another environment to refresh and charge the brain, give sharp insights and get the best ideas.

If there is something to do with hobbies, it is wonderful and should be cherished. If I do not have a hobby, I do not have any hobbies, so I do not have any hobbies, so I do not have any hobbies. Zsomborgi says productivity, concentration and creativity will be enhanced by spiritual holidays separated from business.