Should you be a cheapskate to run a startup?

Sac Executive has a summary of an article suggesting that the single most important thing in your startup during the early days is capital. It needs to be conserved and only spent when absolutely necessary.

Don’t lease an office, buy the cheapest workstations you can find, and skip the phone system are all suggestions from the article. Every dime is precious; when you run out of them, the game is over.

Guy Kawasaki wrote a year ago about the Art of Bootstrapping and explained how to build your business based on your revenue. Along with explaining how to realistically forecast revenue, Kawasaki suggests such cheapskate techniques as underhiring and finding cheap talent instead of superstar (and super expensive) employees.

If you’re conservative about how you spend your money it will last a lot longer.