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A few lessons from this program

What if you can't get funding for your startup?

Before launching Tsavo, his current startup, Mike Jones funded a startup through consulting work. Here's an edited excerpt from his interview.

Do you have any advice for a startup that can't raise money?

If you have a good concept that you really want to pursue, and there's absolutely no way that you're going to find financing because the market is the market, or your angel investors aren't stepping up, then I think a consulting practice could be a bridge to get you were you want to go. But it is a substantial distraction and a lot of people might not either have the discipline to do it or the stomach for it.

We luckily did.

When you ran userplane, how did you make the transition from consulting to building your own product?

There was a really small client in the Valley here in Los Angeles that wanted instant messaging software that they couldn't afford a typical engagement for us to build. We had interest in building it. It's something we'd been talking a lot about, thinking a lot about, and sold them on.

We were able to strike up a licensing agreement with them, where they agreed to license the product. And we already started building it because we'd been building it in our spare time. But that first license relationship provided us with financing that allowed us to focus on it.

It was like a pre-sale.

Have any other suggestions for bootstrapping a company? Tell me by email, in the comments or on Twitter.