One of the great discoveries that I have made while bootstrapping businesses for the past 20 years is what I refer to as the “Zig Zag” principle. Bootstrapping a business with limited financial resources requires business owners to “chase cash”. Conventional wisdom teaches that the shortest distance between startup and success is a straight line. I have found it is better to “zig zag” in pursuit of the ultimate destination.

“Zig Zagging” provides three very distinct benefits: First, it slows you down and allows you to carefully assess progress as you build the business. Second, taking the longer route leads to unexpected opportunities that otherwise would have been missed. Third, this approach creates multiple business opportunities which diversifies the business and adds a level of security.

Many business owners call themselves serial entrepreneurs. Ron and I engage in “parallel entrepreneurship”. One of the outcomes of “zig-zagging” is the creation of multiple business opportunities. In short, we milk our cows to fund our racehorses.

Bootstrapping allows freedom from the restrictive path of venture capital or debt financing. It permits the entrepreneur to allocate revenue where it has the best opportunity to build success. “Zig Zagging” allows the entrepreneur to navigate into a business that is even better than the one originally imagined.

We used this “zig-zag” principle while creating the test business to prove the concepts in this book. After running a “Porter Model” on various opportunities, we set as our target business to create an online entrepreneurs social network. We started down the path by creating revision 1 of the website www.bootstrapbussiness.org. Once created however, we immediately took a “zig”, doing SEO consulting for several large East Coast corporations. Why? We had to chase cash. A few months later, we “zagged.” We hired some engineers to do contract jobs for several new clients. We now had at our disposal engineers who could also work on the Website. Then another “zig, - web link building which turned out to be another critical building-block for promoting the bootstrapbusiness.org website. The beginning of 2008 we took our latest “zag”; the creation of several supportive viral websites. And what is the next “zig”? The book! Each business opportunity we have “zigged and zagged” to has been complimentary, helping us progress toward our ultimate destination. The path has been slower than a bee-line to the initial objective of our entrepreneurial social network website. However, the path we followed has been profitable from day one. Along the way we have discovered numerous, unexpected gems that will make the business not only more viable, but also more successful.