'Entrepreneurs lift their dreams by the bootstraps'

Just a quick link to last Sunday's column on entrepreneurs who've taken the bootstrapping approach, avoiding much dependence on outside funding. From the piece:

"Common sense would tell you that the boot-strapping approach increases when you're in a recession," since loans and venture capital may not be as readily accessible, says Babson College professor Patricia Greene. "But I always point out that this is the way lots of businesses get started. When I looked at the Inc. 500 list a few years ago, most of the companies on it had been started with between $10,000 and $50,000 in capital."

Greene says that successful bootstrappers think endlessly about "creative ways to get money, and ways not to need so much money."

Among the companies I discuss are Cisco Brewers, Atalasoft, Karmaloop, Motivation Designs, and FitnessKeeper.