I saw an episode of This Week in Venture Capital on YouTube. It featured Tracy DiNunzio. She is founder of the Recycled Bride web site. The site features second hand wedding items. Tracy initially bootstrapped the site. She relied on renting out her bedrooms using AirBnb, sleeping on her couch.Tracy first hired a freelancer to put together her web site. That resulted in failure. Then she turned to a firm to put together the web site for a cost of $20k. Tracy hand optimized the web site for SEO purposes. She learned enough to be able to do SEO training herself.
Not all of DiNunzio's efforts were successful. She launched a follow-up site called Recycled Tyke that bombed. Soon she plans to launch another follow-up site called Recycled Style. Also it appears that she has taken some investments. She plans to use the use the funds to hire employees such as technical people. Or perhaps she may take on a technical cofounder. I love it when a start up turns a profit.
