Seven tough lessons from ten years in bootstrapped business
I&#x27;m in a pretty similar situation, but it&#x27;s actually working really well for me because of some important things.<p>1. Having a healthy amount of savings before embarking on a bootstrapping business. There has been never a point where I have had trouble paying bills. I have 5-6 years of expenses saved up.<p>2. Doing the research in terms of how to run a business. I have an accountant, I did tax planning from the beginning and I make sure to evolve on the business operating side constantly. (use software that makes the process easier, such as automatic invoicing, working with an accountant, working with a lawyer.)<p>3. Working in a start-up environment and learning how to prioritize work.<p>4. Reading The Great CEO Within from Matt Mochary, there&#x27;s so many tips in there that have been amazing and helpful<p>I&#x27;m definitely struggling with the scaling issue of consulting tho. It&#x27;s great and all, but I find it a struggle to add people to the company because of how specialized and good I am at my work. I&#x27;m generally the selling point.<p>I am working on 2-3 products on the side of the consulting work with the hope that the products eventually become the focus. I do understand the downfall of the consulting taking a lot of my time and not spending enough on product work, but somehow I&#x27;ve been able to keep up.<p>The great part about doing this is that you work with a lot of different companies and you actually get to learn a bunch of of things that work and do not work. You get to see how different business models work and scale and it&#x27;s very enlightening on your own company.<p>For example, I&#x27;m averse to starting any sort of agency in terms of web development, since I&#x27;ve seen multiple of my clients have issues with scaling the business model and retaining customers.<p>Overall, consulting has been a pretty positive experience. I&#x27;ve only been doing it for 2 years, so we&#x27;ll see how it works in the long term. But my side product is generating $800 &#x2F; mo in income and I hope to scale it to cover all my expenses and then I&#x27;m more able to work on products and do less consulting.