(Bootstrapping Guide) Ideas and tips for bootstrapping your way to success

[William702]

Hi all, I like many other 30 somethings grew up with Scrooge McDuck so I love bootstrapping and the idea of saving some money is very pleasing. I'm going to try and add a new post as often as I can to this thread with a tip here and there to save some cash on things you might do or use every day. They will of course be geared towards IM. If any tip or idea suggested is out of date or you have a better version or a better idea or know of something that would make the tip completely obsolete then share it with us all in this thread. No one knows everything but most people know something so if we try and gather up lost of bootstrapping ideas in one place we should end up with a nice collection of ideas. Some of the tips I share could be totally wrong and someone could point out a whole new way of doing something and that's the point.

One thing I do want to stress is that this is not about being cheap. Some people may not have the means to pay, so for them this is invaluable info and help. If you personally think something might be nickel and diming then that's cool, for you it's clearly not worth it but for someone else it could be so please share your thoughts. If you are someone with more time than money this thread is for you. If you are someone with more money than time a lot of these things might be uneconomical and just paying the money will be more profitable for you.

I'll start off with a simple but effective one that could save most people at least $100 a year on cloud storage for images and files.

If you store a lot of images online you may use one of the free cloud solutions that gives a limited amount of free space before you have to upgrade. some of the pictures I take with my camera can be over 20MB so it only takes 50 pictures before you are storing a GB. If you have an eCommerce shop or blog you could be saving literally thousands of photos, dozens on a daily basis. Over time this can add up. With so many companies changing their policies like Amazon recently did to no longer offer unlimited plans the cost of storing data can be high and the time to change providers can be expensive too. The amount of photos people take on a daily basis these days is mind boggling.

One way I have combated the costs and combated the fact that I might have to move my data from time to time to different sites is having free profiles on sites like Etsy. I have a few accounts so basically if I want to upload a picture to the internet to get a link for it and have a way of storing it indefinitely without paying and worrying about it I would send a message from one account to the other while titling the message something like "blog post #6 pics" or "listing #42 pics" etc.

This way I could easily find them and they are safe. I can also make folders in my inbox to categorize them further. People have had accounts there for over a decade and I dont see a site like etsy going any place too soon. You can use any site that is stable, has a long life ahead of it, allows you to upload attachments. On a site like etsy you can only upload files and pics but on other sites you may be able to upload videos too.

As long as you dont use the accounts for anything that will get you shut down and log in regularly then they should last forever. You may of course want to check the terms of a site to see what rights you have to data in the event of site closure or account closure or what rights they have to the data. For most people who pay $100 for something like Dropbox just to store a few files and photos this is a great way to save some money going forward. It does not take many files to pass their free limits as with many other storage sites too.

Hope this tip helped, if it did press the thanks button and likewise for anyone else who's posts helped you show them your appreciation too. Good luck.

 

[William702]

This next bootstrapping lesson is great for people with eCommerce stores looking to promote their products via influencer marketing.

The best method I found for generating the most return has been working with influencers, influencers on YouTube in particular. Everyone should know about the benefits of working with influencers but if done wrong it can cost you a lot of money.

Most influencers these days realize they have something of value and ask for some sort of monetary compensation, some are reasonable and some are so outlandish that you know that someone put a stupid figure in their head and now they think they can ask for that much. I have had someone with just two thousand followers ask for $1500 for a single post and up to $4,500 if they wanted it to be a stand alone promotion for just my items along with it being shared on their other social platforms, all with pitiful numbers like their Instagram which is what they presented me with even when I contacted them on YouTube. Then on the other hand I have had people with anything from 10,000 - 20,000 followers do reviews for free which generated thousands of dollars in sales.

One way I find good influencers to work with is by logging in to a google account to comment on videos and message people with. First I will go through a list of people via the search. I then comment on the recent video and then go back the next day to message them. I mention how I recently found them and commented on a video I liked and in most cases they will have already seen that notification, this helps with conversions immensely.

I search with various filters. I put videos in the last week, longer videos and also start from the most recent. i try and stick to people with 1k subs or more. but try and stay under 10,000 for this bootstrapping method. Once you start to work with influencers lots more will contact you directly offering their services. the type of people that reach out themselves are usually getting started so they are not great but they all count, especially if they are free.

Most of the people I worked with were up and coming and just getting started so I would only work with people who would do it for free and believe me they are easy to find. Its also easy to see the type of people just cranking out videos for free stuff too and they are easily avoided. When an influencer made a video I would go to Fiverr or SEOclerks and get a service for views. the influencer would be amazed at how the video grew and in most cases asked if they could do more videos. but the main benefit was that the video would show up as their most viewed and from that point on would get the lions share of all the traffic and views. This method allowed us to generate literally tens of thousands of sales to one of our cosmetics brands.

Of course the beauty niche is one of the largest and easiest to work with but this method would work for any niche. Its all about getting in at the beginning with many of these people because in a few months time their channels could blow up and get a lot of exposure to the point where they then start charging. most of the people we worked with would continue to offer us free reviews because of the success of our videos.

There is no point paying one person a few hundred dollars to do a review when that money could be spent sending out products to over 50 people. for us it was the cost of shipping which was around $3 - $4 along with maybe $6 - $10 worth of cosmetics. of course the retail on those would have been $50 - $150 so they also thought they were getting a ton but the fact is they cost us a lot less to produce so it was a great deal for us.

For between $10 and $20 dollars depending on the size of the influencer we would get a video review of someone reviewing several of our cosmetics that was in most cases over 10 minutes long that was exposed to all of their followers. these people are like gods to some of their followers so any recommendation was swiftly met with an influx of orders all clicking from their channel. Once we were finished getting our review video to the top of their views list we would do the same with the next person and so on. These channels would then carry on working for us going forward generating a lot of traffic and sales. obviously some were better than others but all were very profitable and i dont think a single one was ever a negative ROI.

I see lots of companies throwing money around that could get their brands serious exposure on a fucking sign to put behind them in their office. I almost want to cry but i guess the world needs stupid people too. Any eCommerce business online could take advantage of this method of advertising with influencers

As always feel free to post questions or any tips and experiences of your own.

 

[a hungry bear]

Really informative man thanks for the share defienly helps with my eCommerce site that I'm working on.

 

[William702]

Really informative man thanks for the share defienly helps with my eCommerce site that I'm working on.

My pleasure. What sort of products do you sell if you don't mind me asking?

 

[a hungry bear]

My pleasure. What sort of products do you sell if you don't mind me asking?

Well I am not going to go into too much detail about my niche since it's a really good one but it's something that you can put on your desk and a great conversation starter. I'm able to get the product at 20 bucks and sell them for 60 dollars so there's a good profit margin and I'll be drop shipping it. I was thinking about using Facebook PPC to promote it but not that I'm looking at it I can use influencers to help get the product out more. Probably be looking at IG to help promote. I just need to make a killer video of the product which video production is something that I am not knowledge about but it's a great opportunity to help develop that skill I guess.

 

[William702]

I totally understand you have given me enough of an idea to give suggestions anyway. I might Know of a service you could try. I used the service on here last week for something similar and it did very well. There is a guy offering Imgur services. He posted one of the pieces I am promoting and it had nearly 5000 visitors and a generated $700 in sales over the day. It might work for your products it might not, from the sounds of it I think its kind of like the the thing I was promoting. Here is his thread: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/i...d-site-in-the-u-s.972046/page-2#post-10434055

I'm not affiliates with this person in any way. I'm just a happy customer recommending it to others if it might help them.

 

[ryuu]

This next bootstrapping lesson is great for people with eCommerce stores looking to promote their products via influencer marketing.

The best method I found for generating the most return has been working with influencers, influencers on YouTube in particular. Everyone should know about the benefits of working with influencers but if done wrong it can cost you a lot of money.

Most influencers these days realize they have something of value and ask for some sort of monetary compensation, some are reasonable and some are so outlandish that you know that someone put a stupid figure in their head and now they think they can ask for that much. I have had someone with just two thousand followers ask for $1500 for a single post and up to $4,500 if they wanted it to be a stand alone promotion for just my items along with it being shared on their other social platforms, all with pitiful numbers like their Instagram which is what they presented me with even when I contacted them on YouTube. Then on the other hand I have had people with anything from 10,000 - 20,000 followers do reviews for free which generated thousands of dollars in sales.

One way I find good influencers to work with is by logging in to a google account to comment on videos and message people with. First I will go through a list of people via the search. I then comment on the recent video and then go back the next day to message them. I mention how I recently found them and commented on a video I liked and in most cases they will have already seen that notification, this helps with conversions immensely.

I search with various filters. I put videos in the last week, longer videos and also start from the most recent. i try and stick to people with 1k subs or more. but try and stay under 10,000 for this bootstrapping method. Once you start to work with influencers lots more will contact you directly offering their services. the type of people that reach out themselves are usually getting started so they are not great but they all count, especially if they are free.

Most of the people I worked with were up and coming and just getting started so I would only work with people who would do it for free and believe me they are easy to find. Its also easy to see the type of people just cranking out videos for free stuff too and they are easily avoided. When an influencer made a video I would go to Fiverr or SEOclerks and get a service for views. the influencer would be amazed at how the video grew and in most cases asked if they could do more videos. but the main benefit was that the video would show up as their most viewed and from that point on would get the lions share of all the traffic and views. This method allowed us to generate literally tens of thousands of sales to one of our cosmetics brands.

Of course the beauty niche is one of the largest and easiest to work with but this method would work for any niche. Its all about getting in at the beginning with many of these people because in a few months time their channels could blow up and get a lot of exposure to the point where they then start charging. most of the people we worked with would continue to offer us free reviews because of the success of our videos.

There is no point paying one person a few hundred dollars to do a review when that money could be spent sending out products to over 50 people. for us it was the cost of shipping which was around $3 - $4 along with maybe $6 - $10 worth of cosmetics. of course the retail on those would have been $50 - $150 so they also thought they were getting a ton but the fact is they cost us a lot less to produce so it was a great deal for us.

For between $10 and $20 dollars depending on the size of the influencer we would get a video review of someone reviewing several of our cosmetics that was in most cases over 10 minutes long that was exposed to all of their followers. these people are like gods to some of their followers so any recommendation was swiftly met with an influx of orders all clicking from their channel. Once we were finished getting our review video to the top of their views list we would do the same with the next person and so on. These channels would then carry on working for us going forward generating a lot of traffic and sales. obviously some were better than others but all were very profitable and i dont think a single one was ever a negative ROI.

I see lots of companies throwing money around that could get their brands serious exposure on a fucking sign to put behind them in their office. I almost want to cry but i guess the world needs stupid people too. Any eCommerce business online could take advantage of this method of advertising with influencers

As always feel free to post questions or any tips and experiences of your own.

I am just starting with IM and wondering how to best reach out to influencers. This is tremendous!

 

[rafark]

Waitin for the next tip.

 

[William702]

Waitin for the next tip.

ROFL!

Started this thread a few days after joining. Must have forgotten about it.