How to Teach Technology Entrepreneurship Using the 1Mby1M Methodology and Case Studies: Bootstrapping

In teaching the 1Mby1M methodology of building technology startups, we recommend you start with Bootstrapping. If you’re teaching within a quarter or a semester system, an entire quarter or semester should be dedicated to driving home the importance and the mechanics of this critical subject.

What is bootstrapping? Bootstrapping means building a business without external financing. This differs from businesses funded by investors.

We need teachers of entrepreneurship to encourage entrepreneurs to focus on the fundamentals of their business first rather than raising money. Deglamorize funding, glamorize bootstrapping, and help correct the misconception that entrepreneurship equals financing. Paint a picture of the realities of an alternate, deeply satisfying universe where businesses are built by focusing on customers, revenues, and profit. That’s what entrepreneurship is all about and bootstrapping is the best way to start a business. 

In a world battered by economic uncertainty, entrepreneurship is the only sustainable path forward. And core to the success of these ventures is the art of bootstrapping.

The key bootstrapping techniques and strategies have been packaged into the following courses on Udemy with numerous case studies to illustrate each point:

Bootstrap First, Raise Money Later with Sramana Mitra

Teach the importance of bootstrapping, key techniques, and how bootstrapping to a fundable stage can help gain attention from investors.

Teach entrepreneurs not to waste their precious time and money by chasing investors before chasing customers. The waste stems from a widespread misunderstanding of how investors think. Over 99% of founders chase funding before they are fundable. Using this course, teach them how bootstrapping can help a startup reach that fundable stage. Once fundable, a startup can go to investors like a king, not a beggar.

Bootstrapping a Startup with a Paycheck with Sramana Mitra

Use this course to enlighten student entrepreneurs on the practicalities of starting a company while holding onto a full-time job. Introduce them to entrepreneurs who have built sizable businesses while navigating the messy, cash-strapped startup phases using their own paychecks, or their spouses’ income. Familiarize them with these pragmatic stories and dispel any doubts about starting a business while working full-time. Pragmatism is a core focus of the 1Mby1M methodology.

Bootstrapping a Startup with Services with Sramana Mitra

Offering a service is one of the best ways to bootstrap. This remains a controversial point of view. Most industry observers take the position that companies get distracted if they try to bootstrap a product with a service. But from where I sit, bootstrapping products with services is a tried and true method, especially in B-to-B Tech.

How to Bootstrap Startups by Piggybacking with Sramana Mitra

Shed some light on Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Developer Ecosystems, one of the most exciting trends in the technology industry. 

The company that has knocked the ball out of the park with its PaaS strategy is Salesforce. They launched their platform in the mid-2000s and many substantial companies and numerous sustainable small businesses have been built on it. Veeva, for example, was built this way with a small amount of capital, and boasts over $1B in revenue and over $20 billion in market cap.

My hypothesis is that of the 200+ SaaS companies that have achieved scale, we would see a set that would break out and become significant PaaS players. 

Bootstrapping by piggybacking on these PaaS players is a highly recommendable mechanism for a capital efficient strategy.

How to Bootstrap a Startup to Exit with Sramana Mitra

I’m a big advocate for building small, capital-efficient startups. Not all entrepreneurs need to chase Unicorns. Not all investors need to chase Unicorns. Point out that there are many more viable ideas for those smaller ventures and there are considerably more opportunities for their exits, which means cashing in earlier on an entrepreneur’s hard work.

One type of exit is under $50 million and to achieve that, the strategy should be to build a capital-efficient company that shows product-market fit in an efficient, bootstrapped manner.

How To Succeed As A Solo Entrepreneur with Sramana Mitra

How does one teach how to succeed as a solo founder? It is actually quite simple. Guide your students to just find a niche, start solo, run lean, and get to product-market fit and paying customers. 

Capital efficient ventures remain the best way to build healthy, robust businesses for a large number of entrepreneurs. Illustrate this with the help of examples like ServiceNow, which was started solo by Fred Luddy. The company is public and worth over $125 billion.  

Assessment

An entrepreneurship teacher prepares students for the real world. Use the case studies provided in the course to illustrate bootstrapping techniques, discuss different scenarios and paths of the entrepreneurial journey, and discuss what they have learned from each case study and how they plan to apply that wisdom. 

Papers

At the end of each of the six Udemy courses, have your students write a paper on a case study of their choice from that course. Grade them on the subtleties and nuances of their understanding of the relevant issues.

Final Project

Group your students into teams, and ask them to pick a particular case study from the curriculum, and do a presentation on it. There are six specific courses tackling six specific topics. Split your class into six teams, and have each team tackle one topic with one case study that they present and lead discussion on. Grade the teams on presentation.

Estimated Timeline

Your course should be split into six parts, one part dedicated to each Udemy course.

Roughly speaking, students should dedicate 15-20 hours per Udemy course including studying the online lectures and texts, in-class discussions, papers, and presentations.

Outcome

At the end of your course, students should feel confident about starting a business and putting one foot before the other. Even if they do not go onto the other courses in your 4-part series, you have given them a life-changing experience. Even if they decide to become an entrepreneur in middle-age, not immediately, they are likely to remember you, and the sense of empowerment that you have equipped them to face life with.

Photo Credit: Colin Behrens from Pixabay

This segment is a part in the series : How to Teach Technology Entrepreneurship Using the 1Mby1M Methodology and Case Studies