What comes to mind when you think of a bootstrapped company?

How about stable, consistent, and successful?

Jotform started quietly enough. In 2006 I was working as a developer for a media company in New York when I realized how impossible it was for non-technically skilled people to create their own online forms. Building them the old fashioned way required technical expertise and loads of time. So I decided to fix that with the world’s first WYSIWYG form builder.

In a 2011 Entrepreneur article about tips on being a successful bootstrapped company, they said, “it may seem counterintuitive, but slow, steady growth is preferable to fast, explosive growth.” And that’s just what Jotform did. We grew slow, methodically, and steadily in those early years. It took from 2006 to 2013 to get our first one million users. Our second million? Well, that came a little faster.

Quite a lot has changed about Jotform since the early years: we’ve added dozens more talented JotFormers to the staff; we’ve been an instrumental tool for a host of Fortune 500 companies’ operational needs; we’ve been featured in top publications; and we’ve added hundreds of new features and integrations to make sure we’re the easiest form builder possible for our users.

Bootstrapping helped us achieve these heights by enabling Jotform to stay true to itself. It allowed us to focus on the product; not money-minded investors. It meant putting our users first. That’s why we still offer the most comprehensive freemium package of any form builder.

While we’re proud of our growth here at Jotform, we’re not slowing down anytime soon. The approach we took to get us this far is the approach we’re taking into the future: providing the easiest way to make forms on the web. And we’re so grateful to all of our wonderful users for helping make us the best online form builder on the planet.

What comes to mind when you think of a bootstrapped company? Image-1

See?

Sometimes the turtle really does beat the rabbit.What comes to mind when YOU hear bootstrapped? And are you looking to get a new business off the ground? Then consider looking into how to start a home business

AUTHOR
Aytekin Tank is the founder and CEO of Jotform and the bestselling author of Automate Your Busywork. A developer by trade but a storyteller by heart, he writes about his journey as an entrepreneur and shares advice for other startups. He loves to hear from Jotform users. You can reach Aytekin from his official website aytekintank.com.

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