Start-ups always need to figure out a legal structure – it’s one of the most common questions asked early on in the formation of any company. For many years this process has been available online from a host of vendors at different price points and levels of service.

At this year’s Blog World Expo, I met up with Nellie Akalp, CEO and Founder of CorpNet Incorporation Services to understand how she differentiates her company, and to learn why she returned to this industry.

Akalp and her husband Phil were one of the originators of the idea of online incorporation, creating MyCorporation.com in 1997. The company was eventually acquired by Intuit and is now privately held again. Once the Akalps sold in 2005, they focused on raising their family and Nellie tried several other careers – including kickboxing instructor – before returning to the field she helped pioneer (once her non-compete ran out.)

“We looked around, and there wasn’t a personal touch or hand holding when companies had questions,” said Akalp. “We heard President Obama talking about the need for more small businesses to start-up, and we created CorpNet in July of 2009.”

CorpNet provides business incorporation services and filing services for entrepreneurs and small business owners looking to start a business, regardless of type. “If an owner doesn’t want to take the step to incorporate, we can help them create a fictitious name under which they can do business,” said Akalp. And once they’re set up, CorpNet attempts to be a one-stop shop, helping owners protect, manage and keep business in compliance with all their legal obligations.

Interestingly enough, CorpNet also provides services for the Company Corporation, potentially one of their competitors. “We have a partnership where we offer registered agent services through Company Corporation in all 50 states, and it is free for the first year.”

(You can learn more about a registered agent in Inc’s Articles of Incorporation or Creating an LLC pages.)

CorpNet also provides another useful service for free – a name check. If you want to call your start-up “Joe’s Deli” they can search your state’s database and tell you if other entities have already claimed that name, or reserve it for you. A full trademark search is $199. Additionally, CorpNet will help educate new business owners about this and other services, via phone, free. For example, CorpNet will talk you through the benefits of incorporation, the ins and outs of where and why to incorporate – but Akalp notes that for specific legal advice you must consult an attorney.

This 10-employee start-up is located in California, and is bootstrapped and growing organically. I asked Nellie what her biggest start-up mistake was, and she told me “Spending lots of money on marketing without having a clear plan of action or clear business goals. When starting a business as a second time around I learned you can’t pay to play. You can’t just buy ads and expect business, and you can’t just put a site up and wait. You have to network, engage with people and get out there.”

After spending almost $250K on advertising, Akalp changed marketing models, reaching out via social networking, engaging with clients on Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and sharing content. Since then, she reports, the company has taken a really positive turn.

Doing your research about your corporate structure and legal needs is important, and CorpNet may be one place to learn, in addition to your own legal counsel.

Where did you get effective advice about your company’s structure? Let us know in the comments below.

Quick side note: I’ve been named to the board of advisers at the South by SouthWest (SXSW) Accelerator program for tech start-ups. If you have a new tech start-up and are looking for visibility read more.

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A Start-Up Helps You Incorporate | Start-up

Ever fantasize about making money by doing stuff that’s so fun, you might even do it for free? Stop dreaming and start doing. These entrepreneurs built businesses around what they love to do, and now their day jobs include skiing, eating ice cream, and hanging out with friends.

Gourmet Ice Cream, Served From a Truck

The recipe was simple and pure. The first ingredient: three summers spent driving a Good Humor truck in college. “I realized that a truck is less risky than a storefront and costs less to start,” says Ben Van Leeuwen, who traveled the world on what he made while passing out King Cones and Strawberry Shortcake bars. Here’s how he launched an ice cream business that is now nearing $1 million in annual sales. Read More

Finding an Audience Online

Greg Stallkamp was always a fitness freak. An avid triathlete, he trained at least five times a week and was always sharing advice on workout routines with friends. So he decided to turn his passion into a business, when he founded Holos Fitness, a social networking site that offers tips on yoga, weightlifting, and more. Read More

How to Launch a Co-Working Facility

When Tony Bacigalupo’s boss announced his company was going virtual, Bacigalupo was thrilled to ditch the office. “I’d always dreaded the idea of dragging myself to a 9-to-5 job,” he says. “This seemed like the perfect way out.” A few years later, however, the freelancer found himself feeling lonely during the day—and an idea for a new business was born. Read More

A Dog Lover Builds a $5 Million Business

Marie Moody knew her dog wasn’t well, but it was still a shock to hear the vet say that Chewy, the mutt she had recently adopted, wouldn’t live long unless she started giving him some extraordinary care. Most important, she needed to pay meticulous attention to the dog’s diet. Unable to find good organic and antibiotic-free meat for dogs, she decided to create her own products. Read More

Why It’s Tough to Start a Fashion Line

In 2001, Leslie Singer was a creative director at a successful branding and marketing agency and had a teaching post at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. But she had been trained as a graphic designer and always dreamed of developing a fashion brand based on her own designs. The deeper she got into the business, however, the more Singer struggled to keep up with demand. Read More

Publishing Children’s Books for the iPhone

It took an English literature major and mother of three named Lynette Mattke to prove that the iPhone is an ideal medium for reading old-fashioned children’s books. Today, her innovative publishing company, PicPocket Books is responsible for between 50 and 100 App Store downloads a day. Read More

Turning a Passion for the Slopes Into a Business

The first few rips didn’t bother Dan Abrams. In fact, the flaws in his backcountry skiwear could feel downright rewarding: the sound of a crotch seam tearing while taking that final step atop an 11,000-foot peak; the worn out Cordura knees that proved how hard he was lunging back down the mountain. Eventually, however, he decided he wanted gear that was as tough as he was. Read More

A Company Cashes in on the Gluten-Free Trend

In 2007, Seth Mendelsohn quit his job as an IT consultant. “I figured I love cooking, so why not just make a career out of it?” he says. The product he decided to bring to market was decidely unfussy: Barbecue sauce. But, as Mendelsohn learned, a food start-up is not for the faint of heart. Read More

Building a Market for Art

Ashley Goldberg loved to draw from an early age, and like many such children, dreamed she would grow up to be an artist. By the age of 15, however, a realization had set in: Sure, she could have fun with her doodling, but hardly anyone — especially in St. Louis, where Goldberg was growing up — actually makes a living that way. Read More

7 Easy Steps to Bootstrapping Success

In this economy, you can pretty much forget about financing. And it’s probably just as well, says marketing guru Seth Godin, author of The Bootstrapper’s Bible. People often ask him for advice on raising venture capital for their start-ups, and “nine times out of 10, I advise them they shouldn’t,” he says. Instead, take these seven steps to self-funded stardom. Read More

Seth Godin – iPhone – Business – New York City – Entrepreneur

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Start-Ups 2010: How to Launch Your Dream Company | Start-up

The Pitch: “About half of the nation’s 29 million small businesses don’t have a website. Many others have trouble attracting online shoppers. Shustir is a virtual marketplace that combines e-commerce and social media. Retailers and service businesses can set up online stores on Shustir for free. Each store includes a blog, which can automatically post updates to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Shoppers use Shustir to find local businesses and become fans of stores they like. For $25 a month, businesses will be promoted as featured sellers and gain higher rankings in our search results. We’re relaunching the site this fall with new features, including a haggling function that will let shoppers and business owners communicate directly to strike deals. We’re raising money for marketing and development.”

Co-Founders: Shu Kim and Khanh Pham
Location: New York City
Employees: None
Launched (Beta): May 2009
2010 Projected Revenue: $6,000
2011 Projected Revenue: $315,000
2012 Projected Revenue: $1.1 million
Number of Businesses That Have Signed Up So Far: 18,300
Number of Unique Visitors Per Month: 20,000
Funding Sought: $500,000
Previous Lives: Kim and Pham worked in the real estate group at Lehman Brothers for eight years.

The Experts Weigh In

Off to a Promising Start
It is impressive that Shustir has signed up more than 18,000 businesses. Based on that alone, I’d take a meeting with the founders. But if it weren’t for that number, I’d be a lot more hesitant. Right now, the company is relying on very low monthly fees. It’s not clear whether it will be able to produce enough revenue that way, especially if businesses are signing up only to get a free website. But if Shustir has found a way to engage small businesses, it could partner with other companies, such as Groupon, that target these types of small businesses.

Jon Chait
Partner, Dace Ventures
Waltham, Massachusetts

Can It Attract Shoppers?
Shustir’s general premise is correct: Many businesses are still doing things the old-fashioned way, and many have trouble marketing. But businesses don’t just want to get online — they want online consumers to buy things. It’s unclear what will drive consumers to Shustir. The site is too broad. The founders should focus on an industry, a particular geography, or a theme — like finding deals — that would give people a reason to come to the site. Small-business owners won’t pay $25 a month if Shustir doesn’t attract enough consumers.

Maha Ibrahim
General partner, Canaan Partners
Menlo Park, California

Revamp the Business Model
Online stores and social networking features are nothing new. Having a Web presence can take many forms these days. There’s so much exciting stuff happening with GPS — matching mobile shoppers with local businesses. But Shustir has no compelling technology. It’s also in a stiffly competitive landscape. I think the company needs to rethink its business model. Many businesses have a hard time finding technical services. If Shustir could be a one-stop shop for social media, mobile, SEO, and advertising, that would be more promising.

Jennifer Thayer Naylor
Managing director, Golden Seeds
New York City

Small business – New York City – Business – Shustir – Lehman Brothers

More: 
Elevator Pitch: Shustir | Start-up

In this economy, you can pretty much forget about financing. And it’s probably just as well, says marketing guru Seth Godin, author of The Bootstrapper’s Bible. People often ask him for advice on raising venture capital for their start-ups, and “nine times out of 10, I advise them they shouldn’t,” he says. Instead, take these seven steps to self-funded stardom.

1. GET CLOSE TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

Most entrepreneurs want to supply established retailers, but Dameion Royes has always preferred having his own stores, in which he could be sure his Big It Up hats were being promoted properly. In college, he talked the campus bookstore into letting him open a boutique and manned it himself. After his retro designs became a sensation, he rented kiosks in upscale malls, in which he could convert passersby into impulse buyers. Today, celebrities such as Naomi Campbell and Wyclef Jean sport Royes’s lids, but he still works the kiosks when he can: “Who better?” he asks.

2. MAKE CLIENTS PAY UP FRONT

When Bjorn Billhardt started his online training consultancy, Enspire Learning, he had just one rule he vowed never to break: Customers had to pay up front for his online training programs. That didn’t stop him from signing up Harvard Business School and the World Bank as his first big clients, and that taught him that the key to survival was cash flow, not growth. So he took work that was outside the company’s focus area if it would contribute to keeping the company afloat, and he deferred expenses as long as he could, waiting for three years to hire a full-time salesperson. Now, when VCs call, Billhardt tells them he doesn’t need their money.

3. FIND THE FREE LUNCH

It is not enough to keep overhead low. Bootstrappers have to build parsimoniousness into their products. Need an industrial designer? Go offshore for a fraction of the price. Need a website? Try open-source software. Need targeted marketing? Use search-engine optimization. “Now you can get standardized work done at a price that competes with companies many times your size,” says Godin. “A huge piece of the cost equation has been removed.”

4. FORGET STEALTH MODE

Successful bootstrappers get in front of customers quickly, adapt to what they hear, and try, try again. Greg Gianforte, founder and CEO of softwaremaker RightNow Technologies, spent a month calling 400 prospective customers to get input on his first product, which, unbeknownst to them, hadn’t even been designed yet. “There’s this tendency to want to go off and start writing software,” says Gianforte, who is also the author of Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company With Almost No Money. “You can do that for years and still not have a company.”

5. BECOME AN EXPERT

Bootstrappers are always fighting to be taken as seriously as competitors with bigger marketing budgets. But it’s a different story for those who become known as experts in their fields. Early in his entrepreneurial career, Josh Baer, founder of e-mail list host Skylist, went on Internet message boards and answered strangers’ technical questions, never letting on that he was operating out of his frat house. Later, he sought out speaking gigs and panel slots at industry gatherings, in which he could show prospects that he was just as smart as his better-funded rivals. Before long, he was landing customers such as Disney and Microsoft, which had confidence he knew his stuff.

6. ASK FOR HELP

Bootstrappers are busy, but they can’t afford to be bashful. They treat small-business counselors, networking groups, and other entrepreneurs as informal advisory boards. These resources aren’t hard to find: The nonprofit SCORE Association offers free assistance with incorporating, financing, disaster preparedness, and other common entrepreneurial headaches, as do more than 900 Small Business Development Centers nationwide. The Bootstrap Network runs a message board on which members can get quick answers to questions as well as advice and referrals. All you have to do is ask.

7. BE PATIENT

When Lisa Price founded hair and body products purveyor Carol’s Daughter, her credit was so poor that even a bank loan was out of the question. So she kept her aspirations modest, experimenting in her kitchen and selling to friends at parties in her home. It took her six years to open her first retail outlet, but soon, she had fans, including Oprah Winfrey, making special trips to load up on her concoctions (Winfrey lauded them on her show). In 2005, a group of celebrity investors took a stake to help her expand. Yet during a decade of self-funding, Price never worried that she was taking it too slowly. “Reinvesting in the business and just watching it grow was enough,” she says. “I was just saying to myself, ‘Let’s see how far I can take this.’ “

Seth Godin – Business – Venture capital – Harvard Business School – Oprah Winfrey

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7 Easy Steps to Bootstrapping Success | Start-up

Co-Founders: Dan Abrams, 33; and Greg Steen, 32
Location: Denver
Employees: Six full time; about six part time, plus three owner-operators
Funding: $38,000, borrowed on credit cards
2009 Revenue: $375,000
Start-Up Year: 2004
Breakeven: Winter 2004–05
Insider Insight: Sell to yourself. Abrams was at the heart of the changing ski scene, so he understood the trendsetters to whom he would be selling.
Blind Spot: At first, it was hard to get manufacturers to fill small and out-of-the-ordinary orders. He learned to sell them on his company’s future: “I’d say, ‘FlyLow is going to be the next North Face.’ “

The first few rips didn’t bother Dan Abrams. In fact, the flaws in his backcountry skiwear could feel downright rewarding: the sound of a crotch seam tearing while taking that final step atop an 11,000-foot peak; the worn out Cordura knees that proved how hard he was lunging back down the mountain. After all, beat-up gear is a badge of honor for so-called soul skiers like Abrams, athletes who venture into the backcountry to hike up and ski down unpatrolled, ungroomed powder.

“My friends and I were living in Jackson, Wyoming, after college, and we spent so much time in the backcountry that we were literally tearing apart our pants and jackets every few weeks or months,” says the 33-year-old. “Fortunately, the manufacturers who made that stuff were good about honoring their warranties, so we could always send our gear in for repair or replacements.” But if no one was making stuff that he was totally happy with, Abrams wondered, “why not just make it myself?”

That was in 2001, the same year that Abrams ripped something else: the meniscus cartilage in his knee. The injury turned out to be a blessing. Laid up after surgery, Abrams, then in his mid-20s, made two life-changing decisions. First, he enrolled in business school at the University of Denver. Second, he decided to bolster his education by starting his own line of backcountry ski apparel, with the partnership of soul-skier pal Greg Steen.

Naming the business was easy. “A friend once told us, ‘You guys don’t ski fast; you fly low.’ ” Done. Abrams, who had been bartending by night to pay rent at his mother’s house while in grad school, sank a few grand from his tip jar into an order of FlyLow T-shirts in the winter of 2003–04. “We sold — and gave away — shirts and stickers in ski-area parking lots all over Colorado,” says Abrams. “It was an easy way to test our logo and brand and get our name circulating throughout the skiing community.”

As luck would have it, that community was entering a long-awaited growth spurt. Thanks to the advent of wide skis and alpine touring gear (bindings and boots that allow you to cross-country ski to the top of a mountain and then ski down), more skiers were hitting the backcountry. Resorts were letting skiers ski out of bounds at their own peril. Suddenly, the ski industry, which had been in decline, was on its way to the $4.5 billion mark.

In the winter of 2004–05, using several credit cards, Abrams spent $38,000 on his first real order, from New Zealand and China: 1,000 jackets and 200 pairs of pants, all stitched and layered (sometimes triple-layered) for durability. He also equipped the pants with side zippers for ventilation, so skiers could stay cool when slogging up slopes for hours at a time. “Backcountry skiers are very particular about gear,” says Abrams. “And people appreciated that we were a small company making improvements so they could enjoy the sport even more.”

FlyLow sold its entire first production run. Debt settled, Abrams pulled out his credit cards again, applied for a few others, and put in another order. The result was $180,000 in sales. Revenue climbed to $280,000 in 2007–08, $375,000 in 2008–09, and $500,000 in 2009–10. FlyLow now offers a full line of pants, jackets, and gloves that are available in 125 retail stores, and expects to break $1 million in revenue by the end of the 2010–11 season — not bad for a couple of guys who ski a combined 200 days a year.

Ski – Dan Abrams – University of Denver – North Face – Backcountry skiing

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Start-Ups 2010: Turning a Passion for the Slopes Into a Business | Start-up

Founder: Lynette Mattke, 41
Location: Silver Spring, Maryland
Employees: Two interns
Funding: $30,000, from Mattke and two silent partners
2009 Revenue: $7,500
Start-Up Year: 2009
Breakeven: January 2010
Insider Insight: Mattke saw that her kids loved the iPhone’s touchscreen and that no one had built apps out of quality kids’ books.
Blind Spot: It’s hard to generate profits selling books-as-apps for $1 to $3, even if you keep costs low.

At established publishing houses, sifting through unsolicited manuscripts — the slush pile, as they are collectively, and derisively, known — for children’s books is the work of young editorial assistants hoping to get their big break by spotting the next J.K. Rowling.

Lynette Mattke, founder and publisher of PicPocket Books, is happy to do the job herself. After all, her company didn’t exist two years ago. And though she studied literature in college and has a passion for children’s books, Mattke had never been involved in publishing. So reviewing manuscripts remains a thrill — as does her success at bringing them to market: In the past year, Mattke has put out 40 children’s book titles, to critical acclaim and modest commercial success.

Mattke’s literary career is built partly on a technological innovation. She publishes children’s books in the form of iPhone apps. In early 2009, Mattke’s husband got an iPod Touch and started using some of the inexpensive software programs, or apps, available for download at the online App Store. (Apple says more than five billion such apps were downloaded in the past two years.) Mattke, for her part, noticed a striking lack of high-quality children’s books among the offerings. The stay-at-home mom had been thinking about what to do, given that her three kids, 16, 13, and 10, were getting older. So she set out to fill the void.

Having little technological experience, Mattke found a part-time software developer — a family friend with a full-time job — to build a publishing platform to her specs. Then she approached some children’s book publishers and offered, for free, to turn some of their books into apps. A few saw that they had little to lose and agreed to share the revenue of any app sales. Mattke signed her first contract with a publisher in spring 2009; she found a team of graphic designers in Seattle to execute the transfer from paper to digital form and figured out how to navigate iTunes Connect, the Apple portal that outside developers use to upload and manage their apps.

In July 2009, just a few months after getting to work, Mattke released her first app. Soon, unsolicited manuscripts began to find her, which meant she could publish original titles in addition to app versions of previously published books. She added another graphic-design team, this one in India, and by spring 2010, she had 30 titles for sale in the App Store and 10 more in the works. So far, her most successful is Monster Trucks, a board-book-format title by Robert Gould aimed at the “preliterate-male” audience, a.k.a. little boys. Mattke is particularly proud of Round Is a Mooncake, by Roseanne Thong, which is illustrated by Grace Lin, winner of a 2010 Newbery Honor. Reviews for PicPocket’s titles have been solid, including good mentions in Publishers Weekly and USA Today. Most marketing efforts, however, have taken the form of blog posts and networking, especially through Moms With Apps, a 130-member support network for entrepreneurs like Mattke, who co-founded the group.

These days, sales range from 50 to 100 downloads per day, at prices from 99 cents to $2.99 each. Mattke splits revenue with the publishers and authors — and, of course, with Apple, which gets 30 percent. Revenue runs from $2,000 to $6,000 a month. That covers costs and the production of new titles but doesn’t yet allow Mattke to draw a salary.

Adding more titles may change that, but Mattke has other strategies as well. Most notable, because so many traditional publishers are asking her to put their books on her app platform, she has started charging a modest fee to do so. Meanwhile, Mattke searches her slush pile for promising but unknown authors to champion.

iPhone – Apple – Publishing – iPod Touch – App Store

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Start-Ups 2010: Publishing Children’s Books for the iPhone | Start-up

Plenty of entrepreneurs would give anything for start-up advice from the likes of Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Fred Wilson. That’s why Ray Chan and his brother Chris launched StartupQuote.com, a website that gives people in the startup world access to the wisdom of their idols.

The site features head shots of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs and innovators, above which is a speech bubble containing a single quote on what it takes to succeed. Since Startup Quote went live in April, it’s amassed more than 4,000 Tumblr followers, doubled its page views each month, and attracted attention from the founders of Foursquare, Twitpic and blip.tv, among others.

Ray Chan spoke with Inc. reporter Issie Lapowsky from his home in Hong Kong about Startup Quote’s popularity and what the project has taught him about the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Where did the idea for Startup Quote come from?

Startup Quote was a side project for our web design team, Rollin’ Egg. Our main work is a comedy site called 9GAG. When we’re working on it, we have to go through quite a lot of articles to keep up with the latest trends and developments. From time to time, we’d find articles that talk about entrepreneurship and start-ups. We thought, ‘Why don’t we start a quote site with remarkable quotes to help people get inspired?’

How do you choose which quotes to feature?

The person who said the quote should be well-known. The person has to have really done something, because that means the quote is meaningful. We get submissions from time to time. It’s interesting, because a ton of submissions are just people sending quotes from themselves. Some quotes are sent to us by founders. For example, the founder of Foursquare sent a quote about talent. It’s kind of like an interaction between us and the founders, which is one of the coolest things about the Startup Quote project.

Do you have a favorite quote so far?

There’s a quote by Marc Andreesen, the co-founder of Netscape and Ning.com. The quote is, “In a start-up, absolutely nothing happens, unless you make it happen.” That’s something we really appreciate, because, like Startup Quote itself, we had the idea for so long, but if we didn’t start it, it wouldn’t have happened. It’s really inspiring.

Who are Startup Quote’s readers?

I think most of them are related to the start-up world, the employees of those start-ups, the founders. They’re working in the field. They want inspiration from the heroes or idols of the industry.

Is the site as popular in Hong Kong as it is in the United States?

I think it’s more popular abroad, because Americans treasure start-up culture more, and they treasure the thinking of the individual. They tend to develop their own businesses more. In Chinese society, we work hard and support a family, but you don’t just start a business. This isn’t the way of life in China.

Why do you think the site’s become so popular so quickly?

Every big business nowadays started as a start-up. It’s a very progressive story: if we work hard, if we put all our efforts on our work, then we have a chance to achieve our goals. I think this kind of attitude is very important to our society. Startup culture is not just about businesses. It’s not just about the internet. It’s about the attitude.

Hong Kong – United States – Larry Page – Fred Wilson – Entrepreneur

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Celebrating the Start-up Entrepreneur | Start-up

Ask an MBA how to start a business, and they’ll likely tell you to craft a business plan, pitch it to investors, secure a healthy dose of initial funding and start cranking the PR engine. But the reality is that most entrepreneurs just use homegrown ideas to take their start-ups to the next level — without much help from the venture capital circuit.

Bootstrapping, or the art of building a business with little or no money, is the most common way to start a company. Most are launched with $10,000 or less, according to a Wells Fargo/Gallup study. And some, such as Apple and Dell, became industry juggernauts, dominating their sectors and reaping billions of dollars in revenue — with $1,000 or less to start off with.

The appeal of bootstrapping is simple: freedom.

“When you raise capital, it’s not uncommon to end up selling your soul for a pile of money,” says Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies and author of the book, Bootstrapping Your Business: Start and Grow a Successful Company with Almost No Money. “The biggest benefit of bootstrapping is that, in the end, you own the business and you end up with the fruits of your labor.”

To get your start-up off the ground — without investors watching your every move —you’ll need to build a culture that inspires creative money-saving tactics, attracts talented employees who will work for less, and controls cash flow to keep the lights on until you achieve profitability. Here’s some tips to get you started.

How to Build a Bootstrapping Culture: Make Everyone a Bootstrapper

When hiring an employee, don’t just focus on technical skills and experience. Find out if he or she has a bootstrapping temperament, says Peter Cobb, senior vice president of eBags, the Denver-based online retailer of bags, luggage and other accessories.

“It’s important that they share the vision,” he says. “When you’re starting out and can’t afford to pay market wages, people will work for you because they want to be part of something special — it’s just a fun, high-energy environment.”

The goal is to make each employee a bootstrapper, who is willing to sacrifice and accomplish tasks with minimal resources, he adds.

Cobb started eBags with four partners in 1998, when e-commerce was a novel idea. But the five co-founders, most of them veterans of the luggage giant Samsonite, knew people were comfortable ordering bags via catalogue — a good precursor to buying online. And selling suitcases, high-margin goods that leave ample room for marketing and other expenses, seemed like a bulletproof idea at the time.

Then 9/11 happened, virtually grounding air travel for weeks, and the company hit a stump.

“We gathered all our employees and said, ‘We can either lay off six people, or we can ask every person here, including senior management, to take a 10 percent pay cut,’” Cobb says. “We didn’t lose a single person, it allowed us to save a lot of money and it rallied the team around a plan to make it out of this.”

Besides sharing the pain, Cobb recommends offering stock options to each new hire. It has become an indispensable way for bootstrappers with limited means to recruit, retain and motivate employees, he says. Today, eBags has 100 employees, is the largest online retailer in its space, and has sold 11 million bags to customers worldwide.

Dig Deeper: 14 Bootstrapping Tips

How to Build a Bootstrapping Culture: Take the Minimalist Approach

Adopt a no-frills policy, says Gianforte, whose first company was Brightwork Development, a network management firm he launched in 1986 and eventually sold to McAfee Associates for more than $10 million.

In Brightwork’s early days, Gianforte avoided renting office space and set up shop on his partner’s sun porch in Tinton Falls, New Jersey. The pair would pass the phone back and forth, taking turns being the sales associate, the PR manager, the software engineer and the marketing director.

Even RightNow Technologies, Gianforte’s second major venture, grew from a spare bedroom in his Montana home to a public company that will rake in $180 million in revenue this year. “People are going to tell you that you need a marketing department, a branding agency, a nice office space, fancy letterhead and a great website,” he says. “You don’t need any of that stuff. What you need is a customer who’s willing to pay you money.”

Dig Deeper: Great Companies Started for $1,000 or Less

How to Build a Bootstrapping Culture: Get Creative with Cheap Marketing Tactics

Forget traditional, cash-consuming ad campaigns and marketing literature. If you hit a sales wall, encourage your staffers to solve the problem creatively — and cheaply.

In 2000, the eBags team — then a little-known start-up in need of new customers — pitched an idea to two large, established companies: the snackmaker Frito-Lay and the yogurt company Dannon. Include a $10 eBags coupon with your products, they said, and your customers will earn $7 on a $3 purchase.

Soon, 80 million bags of chips and 25 million yogurt cups bore the eBags name, and sales jumped 20 percent that year.

“Even more valuable than the sales was the awareness it created,” says Cobb. “It was just a creative way to get our name out there. Somebody would see our brand and become familiar with it,” which made them feel more comfortable about forking over their credit card digits.

And the cost to eBags? Absolutely nothing, says Cobb.

Dig Deeper: Great Bootstrapping Secrets: 45 Ideas that Can Save Your Business Money

How to Build a Bootstrapping Culture: Use Sales as a Market Research Method

You don’t need a finished product to start selling, says Gianforte. At RightNow, he cold-called potential customers and hyped the imminent release of software that was far from ready.

“Forget about putting people in a room and asking them about their feelings,” he says. “The best focus group is when I ask a customer for money. They say no, I ask why not, and they tell me why not.” The method allows you to determine very quickly, without much cost or effort, if you have a viable business idea.

After making 400 phone calls, Gianforte knew that companies were drowning in e-mails from their customers but were not equipped with software tools to handle the inquiries. (This was 12 years ago, before consumers began turning to the web for customer service.)

“I had zeroed in on what these companies were willing to pay for — all without writing a line of code,” he said. “The key is to promise delivery within a certain timeframe.”

Dig Deeper: Bootstrapping 101: Switch Business Models On a Dime

How to Build a Bootstrapping Culture: Personal Economics

Determine how much each partner will spend out of pocket to fund the business. The agreement should be fair and equitable, hinging on trust and good faith among all those involved, says Cobb, who used his house as collateral on the eBags office space.

He recommends stretching your personal money as far as it can go, stopping short of bankruptcy. Options include taking out a second mortgage on your home

“I knew that I could get back on the corporate ladder if we failed,” says Cobb, an MBA with 15 years of brand management experience. “Keep a close eye on your cash flow and make sure you have something to fall back on.”

But mixing personal and business expenses should be a delicate balancing act, adds Gianforte, who cautions against taking on massive amounts of debt. “It’s a pretty slippery slope,” he says. “It gives you a sense of comfort when there shouldn’t be any comfort.”

Dig Deeper: When to Stop Bootstrapping It

Business – Venture capital – RightNow Technologies – Greg Gianforte – New Jersey

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How to Build a Bootstrapping Culture | Start-up

Whether you’ve put together a business plan or an investment proposal, you’re going to need an executive summary to preface your report. The summary should include the major details of your report, but it’s important not to bore the reader with minutia. Save the analysis, charts, numbers and glowing reviews for the report itself. This is the time to grab your reader’s attention and let them know what it is you do and why they should read the rest of your business plan or proposal.

The executive summary is also an important way for you, as the entrepreneur, to determine which aspects of your company have the clearest selling points, and which aspects may require a bit more explanation. Akira Hirai, founder and CEO of Phoenix-based Cayenne Consulting, a firm that helps entrepreneurs develop business plans and financial forecasts, says that the process of distilling the essence of your business down to a page forces you to think hard, decide what’s important, and discard things that aren’t essential to the story line. “By doing this,” he says, “you develop a better vision of what your business is all about, and you become better at telling your story.”

How to Write an Executive Summary: Why Write It?

Investors, lenders, executives, managers and CEOs are busy. Always. That means that the executive summary is an essential gateway for your business plan to get read. Think about it this way: if you had an endless list of things to do, and someone handed you an 80-page document and said “read this! you’d probably first want to know why.

“The most important reason to include an executive summary is that in many cases, it is the only thing the reader will read,” says Pablo Bonjour, founder & CEO of Katy, Texas-based SMG Business Plans, a company that offers entrepreneurs assistance in writing business plans. According to Bonjour, investors will read the executive summary to decide if they will even bother reading the rest of the business plan. It’s rare for an investor or lender to read an entire business plan, at least in the initial stages of analysis and consideration for funding, so having a strong executive summary is key.

When you’re writing your business plan, your goal is to get your foot in the door and face-time with the investor. “Assuming that your business is a good fit for the investor, a strong executive summary will get you invited in for a meeting,” Hirai says. “A poor executive summary will leave you standing in the cold.”

Dig Deeper: How to Write a Great Business Plan

How to Write an Executive Summary: The First Paragraph

Just like a movie might begin with a fight scene or a magazine article opens with a funny anecdote, you’ll need a strong hook for your executive summary.

“The most important part of an executive summary is the first paragraph that clearly explains what the company does,” according to Dave Lavinsky, president of Growthink, a Los Angeles-based company that helps entrepreneurs develop business plans and raise capital. “Most business plans start with a story that tries to create excitement, and this doesn’t always work.”

One way to think about it, says Hirai, is that your executive summary needs an executive summary. The first paragraph needs to compel the reader to read the rest of the summary. Perhaps you have a compelling “Aha!” moment, so you might start with that. If you’ve identified a problem in the marketplace that isn’t being adequately serviced, you might start with that, too.

Dig Deeper: Business Executive Summary Template

How to Write an Executive Summary: The Nuts and Bolts

There is no set structure for an executive summary, but there are guidelines you must follow to ensure your business plan or investment proposal gets the attention it deserves. First, think about your core strengths. Use bullet points to present your ideas, and make sure you always use concise language.

“You need to match your story to your audience, your business, and your desired outcomes,” says Hirai. “If you have an exceptional management team, you might start with that.”

Ask yourself what’s unique and exciting about your company. After you’ve explained what your company does, it’s time to sell why you believe you’re uniquely qualified to succeed.

Lavinksy recommends addressing these questions when putting together your executive summary:

•Do you have a unique partnership?

•Do you already have customers and traction?

•Do you have patents or technology?

•Is your marketing plan special in a certain way?

Depending on your audience, you can also try a more rigid approach to the executive summary. After the first paragraph, Bonjour recommends one effective structure is to summarize each section of the executive summary in the same order that is presented within the full business plan. To make the structure as relevant as possible for the reader, who is typically an investor or a lender, he suggests considering these categories:

•A Company Description Summary

•The Problem

•Your Solution

•Why Now

The “Why Now” category is one of the most important questions to answer, because it makes your executive summary timely. The last thing you want is to leave the reader feeling like there’s plenty of time to act. Chances are, if there isn’t any urgency to your executive summary, your business plan won’t get read.

After describing the elements above, the executive summary should also have a brief financial summary. For your financials, Bonjour suggests including the valuation of the deal, so that the reader knows right away what the risks are, and what the returns can be.

Dig Deeper: Executive Summary as a Guiding Light

How to Write an Executive Summary: Strictly Professional Or Humorous? What’s the Tone?

This depends on who your readers are. Do your research. If you’re presenting an investor with a business plan, make sure the language of the executive summary caters to their backgrounds. For example, if you know your investor has a degree in chemical engineering, your language might be different than an executive summary presented to an investor who studied philosophy.

In other words, “use language that will resonate with your target audience,” says Hirai. Don’t be afraid to change your executive summary when you present it to different investors. Consider creating different versions for each audience, he says, but make sure that it’s always kept professional, crisp, and free of any embarrassing errors. Another good tip he recommends is to use personal pronouns (e.g. “we” and “our”) over general nouns (e.g. “the company”). Your reader will feel a stronger personal connection with you, your brand, and your idea if you can relate to them in the first person.

Don’t forget to be confident, either. If the writer does not clearly believe in this company, says Bonjour, why should the reader believe in it? Put yourself in your reader’s shoes and ask yourself why you would want to invest in a company. “Think about it like a job interview or asking a girl out on a date,” he says. “If you are not confident and don’t act like you want it, chances are you won’t get anywhere.”

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How to Write an Executive Summary: The Length

Remember, every executive summary is – and should be – unique. Depending on the size of the business plan or investment proposal you’re sending, the executive summary will vary. However, the general consensus is to have an executive summary between one and four pages.

Think logically. A two-page summary can be printed on the front and back of a single page, which can feel like a professional brochure. And, if you can’t tell the essence of your story in a page or two, says Hirai, then you probably haven’t thought things through well enough.

Echoing this thought, Bonjour asserts “you can cheat a bit by using smaller fonts, widening your margins, shrinking images and tables, but ultimately you need to summarize everything contained within the executive summary. After all, it is called a ‘summary’ for a reason.”

Dig Deeper: How to Refine Your Business Idea

How to Write an Executive Summary: What To Avoid

“Why most business entrepreneurs get executive summaries wrong, is they believe the goal of the executive summary is to get the investors to give them a check,” says Lavinsky. “The goal of the executive summary is to get the investor to read the business plan or to meet with you.”

With that in mind, clear your vocabularies of any superlatives, clich

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