3 Lessons to Grow Your Bootstrapped Business I Learned the Hard Way (So You Don’t Have To)

Growing a bootstrapped business offers a unique set of challenges, especially when your starting capital is small.

Still, overcoming these challenges and remaining independent of external funding allows you to maintain greater agility and control. Depending on your niche and personal philosophy, it’s more than worth it. Especially given the fast-paced dynamics of today’s economy.

Here are three critical lessons for growing your bootstrapped business. I had to learn them the hard way — through first-hand experience growing Tasty Edits, the video editing service and YouTube channel management company for creators and businesses. I launched it in 2020, and it now has a team of more than 50 video editors, video managers, graphic designers, marketing experts and YouTube consultants who have worked with over 1,000 creators and edited more than 25,000 videos.

1. Use innovation to push past barriers

First off, put innovation center stage as you grow your bootstrapped business.

Not just with respect to the products or services you offer your clients. But also when it comes to your internal workflows.

As your business evolves and you add members to your team, you’ll inevitably hit scaling limits. Workflows that used to be efficient enough now cause friction. Tasks fall by the wayside. Team members become overwhelmed.

Innovation can help you push past these barriers.

At my channel, we hit scaling limits within a year of starting. The system we’d built as a team of five, using email, forms and spreadsheets to handle video editing requests? It broke down trying to coordinate ten editors and the volume we were seeing.

To overcome this challenge, we leaped and developed VOMA, a proprietary Video Order Management Application that centralizes all editing-related workflows. Clients can now submit their orders, share their raw footage, detail instructions, give feedback and download deliverables all in a single interface.

Not only did VOMA help the team surmount the scaling issues, it also allowed us to propose a unique selling point to prospective clients in a crowded creator economy.

2. Be hyper-selective of your team

A second critical lesson I learned is to be hyper-selective of the team you assemble.

Looking back at the experience of bootstrapping Tasty Edits, we saw that things could have turned out very differently if not for the input of three or four key people, who drove the company forward through their initiative, responsiveness and adaptability in the face of challenges.

Finding this kind of team member is partially a question of luck. But you can exert some critical influence through your hiring philosophy. Prioritize not just skills, but a fundamental alignment with your company culture, communication style and philosophy.

Take your time hand-picking the right people. And don’t hesitate when it comes to letting people go who no longer match the work culture you’re aiming to foster, or who don’t integrate well with your team. Ultimately, this benefits both them and your business.

3. Step back early

Finally, a third key strategy for growing a bootstrapped business is to pick the right moment to step back and give more autonomy to your team.

When you’re a bootstrapped founder, the temptation to micro-manage all aspects of your business can be extremely strong. You believe in your mission. You built this thing from the ground up. Letting go of any part of it is tricky.

But as you foster your team and build multiple levels of accountability and hierarchy, there comes a time when it’s more valuable for you to invest your energy into keeping a strategic overview. Rather than managing day-to-day workflows.

In a crisis, you can always step back in and throw yourself into the fray. But as long as operations are running smoothly, you need to trust your team to do its thing. Your job is to focus on overarching issues instead.

At Tasty Edits, this was one of the greatest hang-ups we experienced. Going from being in the trenches to directing things from a command center was a major transition. But one that ultimately benefitted the business — it provided more clarity and allowed us to cut through the noise.

Plus, at that stage of growing your bootstrapped business, you can reap the benefits. Watch your team work organically. Free up your own brainspace. And focus on doing the work you love most.