Do you really need $5k to bootstrap a business?

3 points by TJensen 17y ago ↗ HN

So that begs the question (sorry, couldn't resist the reddit flamebait :), can launching a site be done for less than $5k (assuming development and design costs are not included). The question comes from http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=594363.

I'm in the process of building an iPhone app with an online presence. The iPhone app does data gathering; the web site does visualization of the data.

I'm bootstrapping this at the moment and, frankly, don't have much in the pocketbook to apply. Is it possible to bootstrap something for an order of magnitude less?

2 comments

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noodle 17y ago ↗

depends way too much on what you're building and how you define costs.

in a generic sense, can it be done? sure. can you do it for your specific site? maybe.

medianama 17y ago ↗

Absolutely...

I run a small but growing web business (about 500k PVs/month) thats getting very popular in its target segment.

I take it as a challenge to grow it without spending money on anything other than web hosting ($40/month).

Product is built on open source solutions and there is no better way to promote it than getting some relevant press.

What do you need money for?