Marketing for Bootstrappers

If you’re a bootstrapped business or are able to fund your growth through customer revenue or some other way that doesn’t give away ownership, it’s a wonderful thing, but it comes at a cost. You have fewer resources possibly to start when you arguably need it the most to grow your business. And sometimes marketing investments get set to the side. The thinking is, you know, there’s so many things we have to spend money on right now, let’s just put that aside, and as revenue starts coming in, we’ll be able to invest in marketing and, and add fuel to the fire. I wanna give you some thoughts on how to approach marketing in a way that doesn’t impede you later, but also doesn’t cost you a lot of money upfront. 

Start with the end in mind
So first, while you may wanna wait to invest in campaigns and in outreach and the tactics of marketing, I encourage you to prioritize a strategy and a plan upfront before you start investing in it. There’s so much value in knowing where you’re going, who you’re targeting, exactly who they are and what they need, what it is that will appeal to them about what you’re doing and where you will tell those stories. Doing that work upfront will actually save you money because you won’t waste money on inefficient activities that really aren’t helping you in the end. You’ll have much more targeted higher success rate investments when you do invest in your marketing. So take the time and even if you have to spend some money upfront to know where you’re going, it will pay off in the end for you. 

Rightsize
Secondly, don’t take other people’s expectations about what the right size marketing effort looks like for your business. Every business has a different profile of what they need and what marketing can do for their business and what it can’t do. And it’s really important to look at your target and from your planning, understand what those first levers are that will help you the most and do, even if it’s just one thing but the right thing, start there and maybe don’t totally ignore marketing, but don’t over invest in it before you have traction and before you have more revenue coming in.

DIY to start
And finally, as much as you can given your team’s busy load of product development and the other things that you’re doing, DIY your marketing as much as you can. This has two advantages. One, obviously it doesn’t have a cashflow impact. You’re using your existing team to as free labor, so to speak, to get those tactical things done with your marketing. But maybe even more important, you are learning by doing. You are interacting with the market. You are interacting with your prospects, you are understanding and developing a perception for what sticks and what doesn’t and what’s hard and what’s easy and what resonates and what does not. There are gonna be some strategic things you’ll need to selectively choose to invest in, but start first by trying to do ’em yourself as a beginning because it will pay off for you in an experience and learning curve on your marketing.

So while it’s tempting to punt marketing down the road, I encourage you to start marketing now, even if it’s only you picturing your success and understanding what your first steps are that will pay off for you down the road when you can really ramp things.