Shoe String Budget, Executive Level Strategy

It doesn't take much to start. Honestly unless you make poor decisions such as trying to trademark shit or going for patents for god knows what reason you should be able to get from 0-10K with little to no funds invested upfront.

It's a game of strategy and framing. The easiest way to bootstrap is to create middle man businesses (to start). You want to be a connecter not a supplier, and sure as hell not a consumer. The magic spot with a lot of things in life and for sure with bootstrapped businesses is being somewhere right in the middle.

If you can get a website up (debatable if required honestly, I've heard countless stories of designers, freelancers etc getting their first few sales without even having one), setup a business email (probably the only investment I recommend, because it goes a long way to showing you're somewhat serious), and someway of reaching your desired audience (most critical) you should be on your way to 10K without delay... But I'm not a rapper.

What I am tho, is a fucking maniac when it comes to getting your first sale. Even before you have anything setup because NOTHING is more important than validating your idea, and the ONLY way to validate an idea is to find people who are ready to pay NOW!!!

We shipped CC before we even had designers on board. We went after clients and designers at the same frickin time because we knew we'd have a chicken and egg problem if we didn't do so with urgency. It was mission critical that we secure a job as fast as humanly possible to ensure the designers knew we could deliver clients and the clients knew we could deliver designs.

We focussed on seeking out the best designers and offering the ultimate no brainer, a deal they couldn't refuse. Remain completely autonomous doing whatever work you want and simply work with CC as a Design Partner. This allowed us to be agile from day one. And it also meant we could continue running CC without worrying about the designers salary.

So what we're the exec level strategies? 1. Reframe the job title to suit your business model and finances available to you, 2. don't delay, momentum is your friend so go after clients from day one. Simple yet affective as hell when executed with precision.