What these entrepreneurs lacked in funds, they made up for in gumption

The NIST frameworks were designed as flexible, voluntary frameworks. The fact that they are flexible makes it relatively easy to implement them in conjunction with ISO 27001.

This is largely due to both standards having a number of common principles, including; requiring senior management support, a continual improvement process, and a risk-based approach.
https://www.6clicks.com/blog/how-do-iso-27001-and-nist-csf-complement-each-other

https://www.6clicks.com/blog/how-do-iso-27001-and-nist-csf-complement-each-other

I've actually tried some of the tactics used in this story! Like bartering brownies, lol. (Actually when I lived in south america, quite a few people I knew got by doing this.)

In my years as an entrepreneur I've done some pretty crazy things to save/make money. For a little while, I lived in the basement of a barn and worked on a sheep farm for rent and a meal a day (and milked the sheep, which, imo was rather horrible and difficult.)

I've "camped" in a tent outside of a town I couldn't afford to live in while trying to get one of my businesses off the ground.

I had several tricks for traveling, like making cab fare cheaper to the airport by being dropped off at the closest hotel that had a free shuttle service. And never paying for a checked bag by wearing many, many layers of clothing. 😂

And when I think back on those times, they were some of the happiest of my life. So simple.

haha these stories are awesome. The Fetchnotes one is the best.

Back in 2012 the startup attracted a decent amount of publicity and an odd uptick in usage after accidentally sending out a test email message calling users "bitches." ... A few months later the startup was in the news again, this time for asking for donations to the service through the Gumroad digital product marketplace. In return for cash, Fetchnotes co-founders Schiff and Chase Lee promised to send donators a video of them singing karaoke.

That stunt got them enough cash to travel to raise some funding.

Sometimes you just got to beg for help. And it worked out for Fetchnotes! Now they're a team of six with more than 100,000 users. Wild!

"Dog sit and rent out your car" - hard pass here lol.

I respect the grind though

I'm shocked that literally "begging" for money worked - especially in a B2B context. Not only is it not credible in itself, I don't understand how you repair your credibility after that AND the "calling users bitches" situation. I get the point about showing investors they were scrappy...I'm still surprised, but investors are one thing. How did users not turn away?

There's a lot to be said for the " being incredibly cheap" example - I've worked on projects on which the founding team was not at all stringent enough with how they spent their money. Recipe for disaster.