Comment by gerdesj

Errm I think me and my mates count as bootstrappers. Never heard the term before but we have paid off the mortgage on our premises and are decidedly boring.

We have three Directors and a slack handful of employees, that varies around 15 to 25 depending on customers, pandemics, Brexit and murderous Russians.

We incorporated in 2000. 25 years later, we are still trading, which is nice. We will never fiddle with unicorns or set the world on fire, we just want to get along comfortably and be able to sleep at night.

My top tip is to build up a current account balance that will cover the basics for your defined risk period. So, for us that period is six months. The basics are: Corporation tax, VAT and salaries. You'll note I don't mention director's remuneration - that's a nice to have (for me).

I have two customers at the moment that are dealing with going bankrupt, although one looks like they will be OK. I refuse to join them. Small business cash flow is hard, really hard. It's so easy to be tempted to do something daft or to ignore warning signs.

The world is a pretty hard place and not all tech companies get to spawn zillionares. You won't get to use my company as a poster child for funky ... whatever but we are still trading and I'm quite happy with that.

Napoleon disparagingly described Britain as a "nation of shop keepers" - I'll take that and wear it as a badge of honour 8)