Many—maybe most—bootstrapped entrepreneurs tend to bias towards frugality. A dollar saved is a dollar earned. Saving money buys greater freedom, it also enables the entrepreneurs to survive longer, so they have more time to execute their plans or to get lucky.

Here are some scenes from my career to illustrate:

A client leased a beautiful office in a historic building. The CEO made time to personally review every invoice. On our second or third project together, I negotiated a higher rate with his marketing team. He called me on the phone and told me, “You’re charging us too much!” 

A friend told me recently that during a visit to a popular conference, a hotel room would have cost 5x the usual price. So instead, she stayed with a friend.

When a friend, who I’d consider a successful entrepreneur, needed to travel for a new venture, he booked a very small Airbnb room. When he showed me the listing, I thought it looked like a broom closet. He felt proud. He sounded nostalgic for the early days in his career, when he actually needed to stay in such a humble abode. 

A bootstrapped team I worked with had been in business for nearly two decades. For a team all hands, we ate cheese pizza and played pickleball in a suburb an hour’s drive outside of the city. In order to save money on space, the leaders rented a room in a space used for talent casting. There were no windows. They were very mindful of when the next recession might be looming, and often tightened up their spending accordingly. 

Another team I worked with, which leased offices in a swanky part of the city, rented a school bus to do a team event also in the suburbs. It was a long bus ride. The team event reminded me of the entertainment centres I went to when I was a child at daycare.

All of this calls to mind Jeff Bezos’s early days starting Amazon, when placed a door on two filing cabinets and used that as his desk.
Being frugal makes these teams less fragile. They’re able to withstand unexpected outcomes. As Seth Godin writes in the Bootstrapper Bible, “Survival is success.”