Resilient

3Bootstrapping versus Raising Capital

You don't have to have every single step figured out before you venture out and do something.

—Lisa Price

As cliché as it may sound, most great things really don't happen overnight.

Professional Services to Startup

So, it's 2016, and I have an idea for what would soon become Resilia. At the time, my marketing director knew of my aspirations to turn my nonprofit startup services into a software solution. We flew out to San Francisco and met a guy by the name of Ismail. Ismail was so influential in the early success of the technical side of my product that I would end up giving him shares later down the road (when they were actually worth something).

Nonetheless, here I was in San Francisco, embarking on what would become my first venture-backed startup journey.

Now, don't confuse “startup” with “business.” They have some crossover similarities, but startups face challenges unique to the space that “businesses” do not. For instance, pictures of Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk don't represent businesses as much as they do startups. For a new business (not necessarily a startup), there is usually a product demand or product/market fit. Many times, there may be no innovation or inventiveness at all, rather just supplying an existing market demand—but for startups, not so much. For reference and throughout this book, I'll refer to Solid Ground Innovations (or SGI) as a small business and Resilia as a startup so that you know the difference. ...