Free Entrepreneur Book by Seth Godin: The Bootstrapper's Bible

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Business Week once called Seth Godin "The ultimate entrepreneur for the information age."

Now you can download a free PDF version of one of his most popular books The Bookstrapper's Bible, which aims to teach people how to build a business with a great idea and almost no money.

The book is listed as free until December 30th, 2006. (Update: it is now June 2015, and the free link still works. I don't know how much longer it will stay free so get it ASAP.)

The paperback version of the book can also be found on Amazon. Reviewer Howard Rothman writes:

"Starting out in 1986 with practically nothing, book packager and cyberentrepreneur Seth Godin has created a new- and old-media business that now employs 40 and generates around $5 million in annual revenue. In The Bootstrapper's Bible: How to Start and Build a Business with a Great Idea and (Almost) No Money, Godin shows precisely how his own venture, and a slew of others like Dell Computer, Burton Snowboards, Bose Corporation, Starbucks, and many lesser-known companies, ultimately managed to turn that nothing into something quite substantial. 'Bootstrappers built this country, and they continue to make it great,' he writes. 'Virtually every business — from IBM to the local dry-cleaner — was bootstrapped, usually by people with far less smarts, less money, fewer connections, and less vision than you have right now.' He elaborates on specific practices that he believes are critical to entrepreneurs who may have great ideas and boundless enthusiasm but lack the financial resources to launch their businesses in the traditional way. Writing in a clear and straightforward manner, he lays out Nine Magical Rules (such as 'Find people who care about cash less than you do'), Ten Commandments (including 'Don't forget where you came from'), and lots of other helpful tips."

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Greg Go's picture
Greg Go

Nice find! I'm just digging into Godin's manifesto, and it's fantastic.

Change This is a treasure trove of fascinating material too -- not just money/shopping related. It's mostly about the media, but there's good reading there. As if I didn't have a big enough backlog on the "to read" list!

Guest's picture
angelfast

For me, a bootstrapper isn't a particular demographic or even a certain financial situation. Instead, it's a state of mind. Bootstrappers run billion-dollar companies, nonprofit organizations, and start-ups in their basements. A bootstrapper is determined to build a business that pays for itself every day. In many ways, it's easiest to define a bootstrapper by what she isn't: a money-raising bureaucrat who specializes in using other people's money to take big risks in growing a business. Not that there's anything wrong with that...