Starting a Business from the Ground Up

June 17, 2010 | Comments 0

Kollel guys looking to go work don’t have the wealth of choices that are available to most American college grads entering the work force. A college grad however, has many choices. Most of them will start their careers by using their degree to get themselves a “starter job”, which they hope to use as a stepping stone in their career advancement. But some of them will use their accomplishments while in college (research, projects, associations) as a means of reaching out to investors who will fund their projects and ideas with the hope of creating a successful new business, such as the VC’s that funded Larry Page & Sergey Brin’s startup company in 1999 called Google. Not very many, though, will begin their careers by starting their own business without any financial or logistical backing whatsoever.

But us kollel guys don’t have these options available. We generally don’t have any degree to speak of, so we can’t get a traditional job that pays even a modest salary. We also don’t have the expertise and recognition that will get the interest of venture capitalists or other investors in the business. And we have much greater expenses than the population at large, so we can’t just take any entry level position which pays far less than a frum family can manage on.

And so, we are left with only one choice, and that is called bootstrapping. That means to create a new business with little or no money, and to grow that business by using only the internal cash flow that is reinvested in the business. Building a business this way requires no college degree, no angel investors, and no large business loans. The business is conceived, operated, accounted, and overseen by its owner – who doesn’t have to answer to anyone, except to satisfy his customers so they come back and bring others along with them.

Is the path to success a long and hard one? Is it tough to begin your business using a fold up table and chair, without having the “prestige” of an executive office? Aren’t most small businesses out of business within 5 years? Yes, yes, and yes.

But when you are a kollel guy looking for work – there is not much of a choice in the matter. That makes the decision to operate this way so much easier.

P.S. Here’s a great free e-book on how (and why) to be a successful bootstrapper – The Bootstrapper’s Bible, by Seth Godin.

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