Bootstrapped Giants

Some Housekeeping I’m thinking about launching a course to help entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs! If you’re interested, please answer some questions in this quick survey. I’ve decided to change my email cadence to once a week every Sunday morning :) Let’s get started: Entrepreneurs talk about marketing endlessly but I am consistently shocked at how poorly they understand it. I don’t consider myself a marketer. Prior to starting my last company Ampush, I worked at Goldman Sachs. Say...

Seven years into my first business, I burned out. I felt bored and tired. I questioned why I had chosen this business and industry. I wasn’t energized to solve problems. It was very unlike me. And surprisingly, it had nothing to do with business performance. We had just sold a minority interest and I had “freedom” money. Ampush was crushing it: 80% of unicorn startups were our customers and we were responsible for half a billion dollars of ad spend each year. It didn’t matter though. I felt...

I have a secret to sales, recruiting, and landing pretty much any meeting I need to get. I’ve never shared it publicly, but I will today. This system was instrumental in getting Ampush and GrowthAssistant to >8 figures in revenue with virtually ZERO CAC. In short, this is a sales approach that will get you meetings without having to spend money on sales people, marketing costs, etc. The funny thing is: I didn’t even realize this was a “secret” until I showed it to a few friends and their...

Yo Bootstrapped Giants! Here's a little bonus clip from a "fireside chat" I had with my friend Luke from Clever. We chatted about picking a marketing channel for customer acquisition and how I think about social content. WATCH HERE​ TL/DR: Pick one channel! Give it all your attention for 90-120 days and then evaluate from there. Let me know what you think! jesse

In Tuesdays Email, I went through how I sell B2B, but I didn't go deep into what I actually say to seal the deal. So, here's my secret to landing new clients/customers every single time: "sentence stems". What is a "sentence stem"? It's a way to effectively setup the beginning of a sentence. I use them to frame my pitch to be informative, interesting and brief. If you're in DTC or something consumer facing you might not think this applies to you, but you can use these in ads, partnership...

If you’re going to Bootstrap a B2B business, getting good at sales is absolutely critical. I’d go so far as to say, if you don’t like or want to sell a lot, don’t choose a B2B company to bootstrap. Because in your first year (and maybe even your fifth), you’ll be selling a lot. Here’s my cheat sheet for selling that I teach all my GX Founders. How do I get meetings? The simplest system here to start is use your network. I say this to most founders and they nod and then look blankly at me....

BG Crew! In Tuesdays email, I promised a list of my favorite financing sources and a quick overview. Well, here it is! There are TONS of options out there these days to help you get going with little or no capital, become an expert in them. Let me know which ones you choose and why, I’ll keep this database updated. jesse Disclaimer: A biz with established history and solid numbers will be able to get much more traditional forms of funding (e.g. bank loan, line of credit, SBA loan, etc) but...

Virtually every conversation I have with an early entrepreneur goes like this: Them: Jesse, I'm building this and that, will you invest?​​Me: Why can't you bootstrap this?​​Them: Well, I need money for X, Y and Z​​Me: Are you sure you need those things?​​Them: Well, I guess I only need X.​​Me: Ok, so why can't you bootstrap?​​Them: Well, Where do I get $$$ for X?!​​​So let's answer this critical question. Some businesses can truly start with zero, especially in the services realm. We started...