Why We Bootstrapped WooThemes

bootstrap

Obvious answer: we had no money and probably didn't know enough or think far enough to consider outside funding (not that I think we would've gotten it had we look for it).

But seeing this post - Ten Highly Successful Bootstrapped Startups -  over the weekend though, reminded  about the feature WooThemes got on 37Signals' blog last year and that made me all tingly inside again about our journey thus far.

See, I honestly think that we didn't have many options when we started WooThemes. We had no experience of running a business or fundraising, so we did the only thing we knew: work hard & make money.

From day one, we were profitable. We worked hard, charged for our work, made sure we were making money and we put that money in our own pockets. Seeing the immediate gratification (spare cash in our pockets), meant we worked harder, were more ambitious and built a profitable & sustainable business.

We never made an explicit choice to bootstrap WooThemes. We did make a choice to work hard, make money and grow our business organically. Today we can boast more than 43 000 paying customers and a team of 15. Not bad for 3-odd years' of work.