Essay · essay

How to Make Wealth / Startup = Growth (essays)

Paul Graham · paulgraham.com Free Intermediate

Paul Graham's essays introduced the idea of 'ramen profitability' and default-alive thinking that underpins modern bootstrapping. Timeless, first-principles reading on making money and staying alive.

  • Ramen profitability, covering founders' basic costs, makes you default-alive
  • Small startups can create wealth by doing what big companies can't
  • Being default-alive changes every strategic decision you make
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It answers 3 questions

  1. How do I bootstrap a startup with little or no money?
  2. How do I reach profitability (or ramen profitability) as fast as possible?
  3. How do I grow a bootstrapped business without burning cash on marketing?

Read with it

  1. A candid founder conversation on building India's largest brokerage entirely on customer money, with no external capital. The... blume.vc Podcast · podcast episode Bootstrapping his way to build the largest online brokerage in India (Nithin Kamath) Blume Ventures Podcast (with Nithin Kamath)
  2. 37signals wrote the playbook for building profitable software without VC, and Getting Real is free to read online. Their... 37signals.com Book · book (free online) Getting Real (and the 37signals bootstrapping philosophy) 37signals (Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson)
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