5 Startup Tips to Survive the First Year

Bootstrapping a startup is no easy task. That first year is particularly grueling. Yet these days, a lot of folks are bootstrapping their startups, rather than going the VC-funded route.

It takes a tremendous commitment from the founder(s) to make it through the ups and downs during those early months. You must overcome many roadblocks and hurdles as you travel from idea to side project to full-time gig to thriving company.

To that end, let's cover a few tips and tactics crucial to the survival of a bootstrapped startup during its first year. Whether you’re just hatching an idea or already knee-deep in code, hustling to ship your minimum viable product (MVP), these tips will help to move things forward, and ultimately, compete with larger, funded startups.

5 Practical Tips for Perfecting Your Startup Pitch

We are living in the age of the entrepreneur — more people are starting up, and it's ever important to stand out in the crowd. When pitching investors, then, it's crucial that entrepreneurs do their research, understand what's expected of them and pitch accordingly.

We spoke to a handful of venture capitalists and startup entrepreneurs to get their top tips on how to put together the ideal startup pitch. Here are the best five tips we heard.