The Bootstrapped Product Resource List

If you are intending to bootstrap a new product in 2014 then I will have a book for you in early January. Until then here is a list of my favourite resources for bootstrappers and side project creators. Many of these have previously been posted to my list, so if you like these sign up for weekly emails as I collect new resources.

Podcasts

I listen to podcasts while out running and never fail to come back inspired and ready to work after listening to any of these shows.

Books

Many of my favourite books for bootstrappers are self-published, fellow business owners sharing their knowledge and journey.

Design for Conversions – Brian Casel
Starting and Sustaining – Garrett Dimon
Start Small Stay Small – Rob Walling
Customer Support for Bootstrappers – Chase Clemons and Ian Landsman
Authority – Nathan Barry
Design Evolution – Josh Long
The Year Without Pants – Scott Berkun

Blogs

I have picked out some individual articles in another section, these sites however are those that I return to time and time again.

Kalzumeus – Patrick McKenzie’s blog
Brennan Dunn writing about bootstrapping and products
Makeshift make tools for startups and blog about it
Unicorn Free – a site full of no-nonsense advice from Amy Hoy
The Happy Startup School
Less Accounting Blog – the bootstrapped accounting start-up share insights on their blog
Groove are sharing lots of data and stories from their start-up
ExtendsLogic – the blog of Ruben Gamez of Bidsketch
Copy Hackers – Copywriting advice for startups

Presentations

Maciej Cegłowski of Pinboard at XOXO
Marketing Your Personal Projects – Sacha Greif
Bootstrapping a Software Product – Garrett Dimon
Industry Conf 2013 – presentations from the 2013 event including my presentation on Technical Support

Conferences

Events to attend in 2014 that I have either attended in the past, hope to attend this year or just know the people behind and can be sure they will put on a valuable event.

MicroConf and MicroConf Europe – I am hoping to be able to get to the Europe edition in 2014
Business of Software – I’d like to get to BoS one day, there is also some great stuff in the archive video for this conference
Industry Conference – I spoke at Industry last year and will be there as an attendee in 2014.
Dare Conference mini – the 2013 version sounded great, unfortunately I am moving house when the 2014 mini version is on.
ConFoo – I will be speaking at ConFoo, a huge and varied conference, lots of really solid, technical content

Articles of note

A few articles that I shared with my list, that I feel discuss important issues.

Here’s why we dropped our free plan – Nikos Moraitakis of Workable
The Inferno of Independence – Frank Chimero
Lanyrd: from idea to exit – Natalie Downe
The Cascading To Do List – Brian Casel
How I got my first 1000 users in one day – Ryan Friedman
Lifestyle Programming – Andy Brice
The Code is your Enemy – Jason Cohen
95 ways to find your first customers – Jason Evanish
How to successfully validate your idea with a landing page MVP
Data Driven Design with an Annual Survey – Aarron Walter on 24 ways

Tools and services

Many of these are tools and services that we use to run Perch, along with some honourable mentions for tools that I believe are well worth your time.

Community and discussion

I’d love to hear of any other places that bootstrappers hang out, but something I’ve been really happy to see get off the ground this year is The Bootstrapped.fm Forums. Loads of great discussion happening there, so do sign up if you want to talk about the business of bootstrapping software products.

Add your suggestions

Let me know the things you have found useful in the past year by adding a comment.