
Bootstrapping a Start-Up in Silicon Valley - donohoe
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/bootstrapping-a-start-up-in-silicon-valley/?src=twr
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gcheong
"Still, we do have a hard time finding experienced managers here in Silicon
Valley. Most of our managers are homegrown, and we’ve had to teach them to be
managers."

Is this such a bad thing? Is it not generally better to have your managers
come up through the ranks and create the corporate culture from the inside
rather than bring in outsiders to impose one?

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alxp
It sounds like they are happy with the results they get but they're aware that
it takes a lot of work; you can't just promote someone and expect them to know
what they're doing right away. That they gave up on hiring people they don't
know who have the word 'manager' plastered on their resume tells me they're a
lot wiser than most other firms.

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bosch
Props to her for being a female entrepreneur AND bootstrapping in SV.

However, one advantage she had over most people was she had already been a CEO
of a VC backed company and learned a lot from that. I'm pretty sure what she
learned in that experience proved invaluable in her second company.

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marze
With the present army of unemployed workers out there, why aren't more people
getting together and investing sweat equity to create something of value? The
opportunity cost is practically zero for a lot of folks.

"Q. What do your V.C.-funded friends think of what you’re doing?

Ms. Charnock: They alternate between envy, awe, disbelief, and thinking that I
am totally crazy."

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rywang
"For the first year and a half, none of our 13 employees received a paycheck."

How did she find / convince 13 people willing to work off of sweat equity?

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mattmillr
13 into 100% (even if a few get a little bit bigger cut) is a whole lot more
equity than you'd get out of the typical post-VC employee equity pool.

