Coldwater Creek (born in 1984) is a great example of a Bootstrap startup. It was started in the apartment of the two founders in a small town in Idaho. What did they do?
They: cut costs to the bone both personal and in the business, found a market niche (catering to professional women) that was under-exploited, focused on the three most important things in a new startup (SALES, SALES, SALES), showed a profit, used an inexpensive way to reach their customers and add new ones (snail mailed catalogues), changed the business model as needed (adding bricks and mortar stores when warranted) in upscale malls, provided great customer service, invested in staff training, had a lot of confidence in themselves.
But it wasn’t painless. The founding couple divorced and they both experienced a lot of stress. Entrepreneurship is a tough calling but it is perhaps like the River Styx: once you cross it, you can never come back (to a JOB).
Dr. Bruce