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Entrepreneurial "bootstrappers" use creative methods to start and operate businesses. Some entrepreneurs have no other choice, lacking capital or the ability to obtain financing through traditional methods. On the other hand, bootstrapping can be a philosophy, a way of business life based on values such as individualism, self-sufficiency, and a desire to grow a business organically through initiative, ingenuity, and hard work.

Bootstrappers may use financing resources such as credit cards, home equity loans, or money from friends, family members, or personal savings. They might also use the cash that they generate from customers or the generous repayment terms that they negotiate with suppliers to launch their bootstrapped business. While estimates and definitions vary, here's what we do know: the majority of entrepreneurial businesses use some form of bootstrapping to get started and to manage their ongoing operations.

It's been said that bootstrappers do have one advantage over traditionally financed businesses: they find creative workarounds. As underdogs, they've got to be clever enough to outsmart the big dogs. They learn to drop-ship, barter, partner, share space, and how to otherwise employ good, old-fashioned do-it-yourself methods.

BootstrappingStories.com provides a place where entrepreneurial bootstrappers can be recognized. Their successes provide a source of inspiration for all of us who may be looking for heroes, especially in hard times. When a bootstrapper starts a business from scratch, and makes that business take off, powered by courage, passion, and tenacity, often against tremendous odds, he or she creates something to be admired. Others may struggle, and their stories should be noticed, too. We may learn from these negative examples, what not to do.

Each time a bootstrapper's story is posted on BootstrappingStories.com, we hope that he or she will gain additional recognition and local publicity by sharing this information with media contacts in his or her community. We hope that members of the media, while they may be inclined to cover the latest sports news or celebrity gossip, will recognize their own local entrepreneurs who individually and collectively, are the lifeblood of our economy and way of life.

The most recent submissions appear on our home page, and our Editors--aided by a sophisticated "boots" popularity and ratings algorithm--periodically select the best stories and recognize the entrepreneurs in our own Awards Program. In short, BootstrappingStories.com is the place where entrepreneurial dreamers and doers come to share, find new friends, and to be recognized.

Yes, even this site itself has a Bootstrapping "Story," as does its Founder.

What do we do?

Our objectives are to:

• Promote entrepreneurial bootstrapping.
  
• Reward bootstrappers.
  
• Connect bootstrappers with one another, ideas, and resources to enhance the bootstrapping experience and improve its outcomes.
  
• Provide individuals with the power of entrepreneurial choice.
  
• Motivate those who have started, would like to start, or who are afraid to start a business.
  
• Change the world through supporting entrepreneurialism.
  
• Capture the wisdom embedded in Bootstrapping Stories (whether those stories have positive or negative outcomes).
  
• Publish and disseminate bootstrapping information.
  
• Entertain, provoke, enliven, and inspire vigorous discourse about entrepreneurial bootstrapping.
  
• Recognize those among us who are striving to create a better future.
  

Keep bootstrapping,

BootstrappingStories.com

If you are a member of the media and wish to speak with our Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Robert J. Lahm, Jr. (pronounced "Lom"), he would be happy to assist you. Click here to visit an "About Our Founder" page, or go directly to our Contact Form (select Media/Press Relations as the Inquiry Type). 

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