What does it take to be a successful bootstrapping startup founder? An amazing innovation which customers will pay for? A great team that rocks? A scalable sales process? Timing is an essential ingredient. However, for me, it’s all about the founder’s mindset.
Founder’s mindset means determination, resourcefulness to act at speed with purpose and intent, taking risk. Bootstrapping founders have better instincts and believe that advantage lies with the front runners in the closest vicinity to the customers.
It’s easy to spot the mindset traits. I look for proof that someone got off of an established path and learned from being off that path. In my mind the founder mindset ultimately consists of initiating, adapting, learning, and coming out ahead. If this pattern continues in a bootstrapping journey, it is likely that they will be successful. There are many attributes which contribute to this, and here are my ten ‘founder mindset attributes’ which shape the profile of successful bootstrappers I’ve worked with.
1. The curiosity of a child
Founders need a critical thinking skills to look at things from a different perspective, being curious and inquisitive to come up with varying solutions before homing in on their one thing. Founders learn to think for themselves. Yes, jump into startup support programmes for functional skills development, peer group learning, community support and networking, but cut your own path. Go figure stuff out for yourself.
2. Self-belief & relentless optimism
Self-belief is needed to keep going. The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion - not ego, just relentless in their ability to make it happen. Cultivate this early. As you get more data points that your judgment is good and you deliver results, trust yourself more. You only need to be really right about the future once. But do listen to others to ensure your blind spots are not causing your radar to malfunction.
3. Openness to anything
You can follow your hunches and spend time on things that might turn out to be really interesting, but this comes with trade-offs. Be openminded to other’s suggestions and hold an experimental mindset. Don’t bury your head in the sand or make excuses for poor results. Look for small bets you can make where you lose x1 if you’re wrong but make x10 if it works. Then go again.
4. Ability to focus
Focus is a multiplier: What am I going today that will move the business forward? Avoid cruise control and simply working through a task list just ‘doing stuff that needs to be done’. Work on the right thing , even if the results are not immediately visible. Most people waste time on stuff that doesn’t matter. Once you have figured out what to do, be unstoppable about executing priorities quickly
5. Persuasion comes naturally
It's essential for a founder to have the ability to persuade people from the outset, proposing a solution to a problem. Being able to influence requires an inspiring vision, strong communication skills, charisma, and evidence of execution ability. And it's more than just selling. When you're an effective communicator, you know how to influence and drive your point across. You know how to deliver your message. It’s not about a pitch, it’s about building rapport, trust and credibility.
6. Continuous learner
Successful founders are voracious learners, on an exponential learning curve following an ever-increasing up-and-to-the-right trajectory. This has a compounding effect. One of the notable aspects of compound growth is that the furthest out years are the most important. In a world where almost no one takes a truly long-term view, the market richly rewards those who do. Trust the exponential, be patient, and be pleasantly surprised.
7. Intrinsic motivation
driven by passion
The most successful founders I know are primarily internally driven by passion, doing what they do for themselves, compelled to make something happen. Yet most people are primarily externally driven, they do what they do because they want to impress other people with their success and wealth. Do not fall into the mimetic trap.
8. Work hard
You can get close to a breakthrough by working smart or hard but getting to the 99th percentile requires both. You get out what you put in. One of the great joys in startup life is finding your purpose, acting upon it, and discovering that your impact matters, creating something larger than yourself. Successful founders are driven by passion, but it’s about graft, Michelangelo said: If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.
9. Headstrong
A big secret is that you can bend the world to your way of thinking. Most people don’t try, and just accept that things are the way that they are. Successful founders refuse to accept the status quo and have a capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential. I have never met a successful meek and mild person.
10. Community oriented
Successful founders maybe headstrong, but are also highly gregarious and social, thriving in a community with like-minded others. They find a place to share their setbacks, failures, and successes, and create connections. Look at the impressionist painters in Montmartre. The Cafe Guerbois, near Manet's studio became the gathering spot for Manet, Renoir, Degas and Pissarro, and the movement was born and flourished.
Summary
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. Sort your mindset out, embrace the attributes outlined above. Sail away from the safe harbour. Explore, Dream, Discover. Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.
Fundamentally, a successful founder’s mindset means they quit talking, start doing. If you have the above attributes, you become unstoppable. You lose the uncertainty and reticence that I don’t know how to do that thinking becomes irrelevant. Make the most of yourself.
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