Valley of Death

• Principle: Constraint creates innovation
• Birth: Customer Journey - Innovator/Early Adopter customers
• Product: v1
• Inner: Death of the false ego, Road of Trials
• Bootstrapper: Evangelist Leads
• Action: SELL

The Venture is in a fight for its survival and the way it will survive is to find customers - people or organizations who will pay for its product or service. Just as the founders co-created the Demo in the previous phase, so they now co-create the solution with the customer. This is a delicate dance as it will involve many changes to the Demo in order to become a viable product. In some cases, the initial Demo will be thrown away entirely. The Demo acts as a way to get the conversation going with the customer.

This is an incredibly challenging time, both for the bootstrapper and the venture. His persistence is severely tested. This is the time when relying on fellow-bootstrappers is a very appropriate "right action" for the bootstrapper to take. Indeed, many of the needs of the venture can be met by other bootstrappers who have experienced similar challenges.

If possible, some Bootstrappers will find customers while still in the Ideation Phase.

Here again, there is a temptation to seek investor capital. However, the Bootstrapper knows that this will shift focus away from the critical dialog with the key dance partner, the customer.

This stage is similar to the Road of Trials as described by Joseph Campbell. An internal change is also happening for the bootstrapper - their delusions of grandeur and false ego are also getting slowly eroded.

Resources

• Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth DVD - George Lucas
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
• The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses by Amar V. Bhide
• The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran
• Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
• The Luck Factor, THE by Richard Wiseman
• Go It Alone!: The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own by Bruce Judson. For bootstrappers building internet-based businesses.
• The Bootstrapper's Bible: How to Start and Build a Business With a Great Idea and (Almost) No Money by Seth Godin
• The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations by Ori Brafman
• Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
• Becoming a Category of One: How Extraordinary Companies Transcend Commodity and Defy Comparison by Joe Calloway
• What Customers Want: Using Outcome-Driven Innovation to Create Breakthrough Products and Services by Anthony Ulwick and Anthony Ulwick

Stages

• Previous: Ideation
• Next: Growth
• Bootstrap Map