Another really important thing with startups and businesses is money. It's a tough thing, finding funding out there, especially nowadays, you know, with the 2008 bubble bursting, and the banks not lending money to small businesses anymore. And investors don't really invest in companies in certain cities like I'm in Philadelphia, and it's almost impossible to get funding here. If you're not in the education, space, analytics, biomedical, civic healthcare, like if you're not in one of those spaces, you're not like, if you're a Snapchat, you're not going to get funding in Philadelphia, it's almost impossible. You have to be, you know, a b2b business or something. So, my point is, how do you run a startup in a city or in a town or with people that doesn't make any money and you don't have any money?
Well, do the opposite. minimize your expenses. So for example, I make my own coffee. I know this is silly, but instead of going to Dunkin Donuts, and Starbucks or wah wah No offense to any of those companies, I still drink that coffee. Sometimes, I generally make my own, believe it or not by making my own coffee, I save thousands of dollars a year, because those cups are five bucks apiece, or more sometimes, you know. And there's a lot of ways you can save money, get roommates, you know, offset the cost of your rent or your mortgage, don't own a car or buy a car with cash and don't pay a bill every month, use a co working space instead of renting an office, so many things you can do to minimize your expenses.
So if your expenses come down, then the money you make might either equal your expenses or might surpass it. In my case, it surpasses it so that way, I don't have to earn as much money in order to be able to afford my lifestyle, minimize your expenses. And the money you make actually seems like a lot. And in all my startups, I was the only one out of all the co founders I've ever had in all the companies that didn't need money. They needed money to survive, they need the money for they needed a job to pay the bills. And I didn't I could get away with was being a consultant and a contractor and a freelancer and earn enough income to survive comfortably without having to seek funding, whereas everybody else was always about funding.
I gotta get funding, we got to get funding and I'm like, you don't need funding if you minimize your expenses. So when I would look at their expenses, they were outrageous. I mean, these people are buying brand new cars, big office spaces, clothes, dinners, extravagant vacations, well, no wonder you need funding. That's not the way to live. When you're in a startup you need to be bootstrapping. My book is called strap on your boots, people not strap on your Gucci's right?
Bootstrapping means to spend as little as possible, and try to do everything for free. That's what my course has been teaching you. That's what my book is all about as well. If you didn't pick up a copy, it's on Amazon. You can go to Amazon dot Jason sherman.org and pick up a copy. Leave me a good review.
I could use them. Thanks.