69 Bootstrapping Resources
Some of the books, blogs, podcasts and resources I’ve found useful while bootstrapping UserScape for the past 9 years.
Books
- The Profitable Side Project by Rachel Andrew
- Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky
- The Best Software Writing I by Joel Spolsky
- Eric Sink on The Business of Software by Eric Sink
- Start Small Stay Small by Rob Walling
- Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston
- Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Forums
- Bootstrapped - I tried to find another to list, but really this is it!
Link Sharing Things
Blogs
- Amy Hoy
- Patrick McKenzie
- Ian Landsman - Yeah, I’m not as active as I’d like but this is my list!
- Rachel Andrew
- Brian Casel
- Andrey Butov
- Jason Cohen
- Adii Pienaar
- Joel Spolsky
- Eric Sink
- Bootstrapping It - A Medium collection
- Ryan Battles
Newsletters
- Rachel Andrew
- Bootstrapping.io
- Justin Jackson
- Servers for Hackers
- The Lefsetz Letter
- Jason Calacanis
Courses
Conferences
Podcasts
- Bootstrapped.fm
- Bootstrapped Web
- The Nathan Barry Show
- Brennan Dunn
- Chasing Product
- The Rocketship Podcast
- Startups for the Rest of Us
- Bootstrapped with Kids
- Haywire
- Marriage Startup - For you married folk like me, highly recommended
Movies
I consider these critical for anyone starting a business. Yes, these are in order of importance.
- Wall Street
- The Godfather
- The Godfather: Part II
- Glengarry Glen Ross
- The Secret of my Success
- The Hudsucker Proxy
- You’ve Got Mail
Designers
It’s hard to justify spending a lot of money on design early on, but if you have the means these are the designers I’ve worked with over the years. All are top notch.
Professional Services
- Tom Pitegoff - Lawyer
- Maher & Co - Accountants
Apps & Services
These could go on forever. I’m limiting this to ones I personally find very useful.
- HelpSpot - What good is a product without great customer support!
- Forge - Spin up servers without a fuss.
- Convert Kit - Really nice email list management.
- Customer.io - Email automation without a bunch of other junk.
- Dribbble - The best place on the internet for inspiration.
- Feedbin - RSS isn’t dead yet
- Scribbleton - The personal wiki.
- Laracasts - Primarily aimed at PHP developers, but really anyone who works in code should be checking this out.
- Laravel Jobs / Laravel Gurus - Business person and not a coder? Don’t want to learn to code? Hire one.