RightNow: market research and bootstrapping led them to be capital efficient, cashflow positive from day one. Nice work Mr. Gianforte.

Javier, thank you for recognizing businesses like Mr. Gianforte’s that are “return leaders“. It is too easy these days to continue to buy the “traffic first, monetization second” crap that continues to be perpetuated (and which is really only applicable to about 0.0001% of the businesses out there.)

Greg, I’m glad to see that you have been recognized for your efforts with Right Now. I’m building a company right now where we are following the exact same principles: strong market research, large market waves, cashflow is king, and we’re going to use outside capital only for acceleration of the business, and preferably in as few rounds as possible. The fact that a programmer called 400 prospective customers is shocking. I also liked the “100% commission sales person” model which made sense given that Greg knew what the customers wanted at that point.

Great quote: “if you are starting a business, don’t spend your time calling VCs; spend your time calling customers, figure out how to solve their problem and get them to pay for it.”

And thanks also to the DealMaker team for hosting this excellent post on the art of bootstrapping.

Thanks to all of you for sharing this information. It’s encouraging to other entrepreneurs such as myself that we’re on the right path.