The Ten Roads to Riches: The Ways the Wealthy Got There (And How You Can Too!)

Don't be beholden to

venture

capitalists.

Bootstrap all you

can.

10

!The Ten Roads to Riches

starting small and pouring profits back into the firm to self-finance

growth-requiring

patience plus.

It

sounds grand to "start big,"

but

be

warned: Venture capitalists know the start-

up game far

better

than you ever will.

They

fund endless deals. You'll do

one

or a few

in

your

life.

They're

not

funding your firm

for charity, but for ownership and more than their share

of

prof-

its.

They

can create a game plan, so by

your

firm's second or third

financing round, they own much more

of

your firm than you ever

imagined possible. But bootstrappers can do whatever they wish

with cash flow and needn't kowtow to outsiders' wishes.

If

you can

avoid venture capitalists, do it. (Should you decide to go the

VC

route, I needn't waste

your

time telling you how.

There

are myriad

books on it already available.)

PUBLIC

OR

PRIVATE?

Finally, do you want to build a publicly traded firm or a private one?

When

folks think

of

a

CEO,

they usually think

of

heads

of

pub-

lic firms like Bill Gates or Steve

Jobs-mega

names,

mondo

firms.

But the vast majority

of

firms are private. That's

better

in my view.

Thi

s is like choosing between outside funding or bootstrapping.

Generally, firms go public to raise

capital-selling

their souls to the

public. But like getting

VC

funding, you must wrangle with owners

besides

yourself-now

maybe millions

of

them!

Folks idealize the initial public offering (IPO),